


Spies Open And Hidden

by Jenn_Calaelen



Series: Talia Lives AU [1]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenn_Calaelen/pseuds/Jenn_Calaelen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talia Winters isn't programmed into a spy - how does this change things? Given this how do things turn out with the events at the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3. What changes and how do the changes affect the characters?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It didn't make sense to me that Talia was the spy because it would seem that as a telepath the risks of her programming accidentally being set off would be too great. From this the story grew in the sense of seeing how this change would affect everyone else.  
> Beta read by Soledad for canon - any remaining errors are all my fault.  
> Art by weaselett at <http://themulberrybush.livejournal.com/4109.html>  
> Many thanks are due to both of them; as well as to the scifibb mods and various friends without which this story would probably never have been finished.  
> Some of the dialog is taken directly from the show, although I have played with some of it to make it work in the new context.  
> 

Talia thanked the maintenance man and looked around her quarters; it seemed that nothing was out of place. He had tidied up after himself very nicely, but it felt, well, invaded, she supposed. Looking around, she picked up her glass vases in turn, putting them back into their places. She picked up a cushion from the bed and put it back on the sofa, as she glanced around at all the clutter she has accumulated since arriving on Babylon 5.

The door chimed and she turned towards it, surprised, as she wasn't expecting anyone. "Who is it?"

"Lyta - please I need to talk to you - you are the only person I can trust."

Talia immediately placed the voice, slightly surprised, but Susan had been asking about Lyta the night before, so she was close to her thoughts. However, she noticed that Lyta sounded different, paranoid or just scared, although with the Corps telling the two apart was nearly impossible, but at the end of her endurance anyway. "Enter." Talia turned towards the door and watched it open. Lyta stepped in quickly, moved out of sight from the corridor and waited for the door to close completely. Talia sat down on her sofa and waited for Lyta to sit or speak.

"Look, you’re probably scared, but I’m not with the Corps any more! And I know that you helped with the Underground railroad, so I hope you won’t turn me in – at least give me a chance to explain. They helped me escape from the Corps. I had to take the risk of coming to you - there is no one else that I could trust. There is a spy on Babylon 5 – probably among the command staff or someone close to them. I went to the Captain, but then I was attacked. Help me! I need to uncover the spy before they kill me."

Talia stared at her for a moment, trying to get her thoughts in order. She was scared by the fact that Lyta knew she was a rebel, but it wasn’t that surprising. However she realised that she was in danger; if Lyta could find out, how long could it be before the Corps knew!  
"How do you know it is not me?" she asked, stalling for time, unable to believe that any of them could be a spy - it would seem completely unlike them, and surely she would have picked up on it if they were lying to her.

"There is a Psi Corps programme to create sleeper agents, who are only activated when the password is sent directly to their mind, but it would be too risky for it to be a telepath. Obviously it could be set off accidentally at any time. Apparently they lost several agents that way at the start of the program."

Lyta seemed to be calming down slightly, although still jittering about. "Don't ask me how I know – it would be too dangerous for you."

"So what do you need me to do?" Talia replied shakily.

"Talk to them for me and arrange a meeting - if they can be convinced, the captain didn’t seem to believe me. But don’t trust anyone - well, I think Captain Sheridan can be trusted, because I think the spy has been here longer than him."  
"Okay. I’ll talk to him for you. Look, why don’t you stay here for now, and get some rest. You seem exhausted."

"Thank you." Lyta flopped down on the bed and closed her eyes. She hadn’t even removed her shoes.  
Talia got up and retrieved a spare blanket from her wardrobe. She spread it across Lyta, and crossed to the kitchen. She started making tea, worrying. Her mind went back to the night before, thinking of when she had woken to find Susan gone; it seemed that in this case she knew the answer to Lyta's accusation. She closed her eyes and tried not to cry. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Susan already, but couldn’t allow a spy to remain on Babylon 5 or to report back. Otherwise the Corps would find out about everything; she would be in so much trouble. She shivered at the thought of the way that she would be interrogated and taken to pieces by Psi Cops. Swallowing softly, she put the kettle down, knowing she must find Captain Sheridan at once.

On her way to his office she enountered Susan. Following their conversation, she felt even more certain that Susan was the agent. She continued up to C&C, trying to think of an innocuous reason to need to see the Captain in private. However, there was no need for it, as he was in his office alone.

"Captain Sheridan, I need to talk to you."

"Certainly, Ms Winters"

"I’ve spoken to Lyta." Talia hesitated, realising she hadn't though out how to say what needed to be said.

"Oh yes, I suppose she would go to you for help. What does she think she needs?"

"All of the command staff somewhere at one time, if you are going to agreed to the scans, and soon as she feels that she is in danger."

"Well, she was attacked last night, so that is only reasonable. Do you have a way to contact her?"

"Yes."

"Tell her to be here in an hour."

Talia noticed how unhappy he seemed about it, but his words seemed to confirm that Lyta was right about him not being the spy. She wondered if she should tell him about her suspicions of Ivanova, but she would be exposing their relationship and neither of them had felt ready for that; and it would cause more problems for Susan, if she turned out to be innocent.

"Thank you." She left quickly and returned to her quarters to warn Lyta. She realised as she opened the door that if Sheridan was the spy she had just lead him to Lyta. However, no one seemed to be watching her as she glanced around. She entered and let the door close before crossing to the bed. Lyta was still asleep, Talia felt a moment of guilt before steeling herself to wake her.

"Lyta," Talia began. Lyta’s eyes snapped open and she sat up sharply. "There’s no danger," Talia said quickly, "but Captain Sheridan has agreed to you scanning people. You are to meet them in fifty minutes in his office."

Lyta nodded and ran her hands through her hair.

"You are welcome to use my shower, if you want," Talia took a breath, "and borrow clean clothes if you want."

"Thank you."

Talia went to her wardrobe and selected clothes, trying not to show how hard it was for her. She picked out a skirt suit in blue that was slightly tight on her, as Lyta looked thinner than her – at that time. She passed that and underclothes to Lyta. Lyta got up and went into the bathroom.

While Talia was waiting she made tea and got out some fruit, in case Lyta was hungry. In a few minutes she emerged, looking cleaner and less like a fugitive, although Talia noticed that the clothes didn’t fit her well, but at least they were clean and fresh.

"Thank you again," Lyta said, "It is good to be clean and tidy, being on the run doesn’t give many opportunities for that and I remember that you don’t like sharing clothes, even when we were apprenticing together." Lyta smiled as she said it.

Talia nodded and offered her tea and fruit, Lyta accepted and ate quickly.

"Will you come with me? You can leave after we have scanned command staff, but if one if them is a spy, I would have thought that they already know enough to compromise you and I'd appreciate the company."

"Yes, as long as it doesn't take long; I have appointments that I must keep later today." Talia looked away, trying not to let on that she didn't want people to know that she was involved in any way.

"And you don’t want anyone else to know you are working with me, so that the Corps thinks you are still loyal. Look - you go ahead and I’ll follow you in a few minutes - then we won’t be seen together." Talia felt Lyta’s slight pain at the words, but knew that she was being sensible, "However, at least this way we can allies or friends again, even if only in secret for now. Have you considered what you are going to do? It won’t be safe for you to stay here - Psi Corps is sure to know that you have been here and they’ll be sending someone to bring you back."

"I’m going to try and get to the Vorlon Homeworld - don’t tell me, I know the problems, but I have to. I can’t explain."

Talia nodded, but wondered if Kosh has implanted a suggestion to this effect when Lyta has scanned him - it would certainly be convenient for the Vorlons to get rid of the only telepath to have scanned one of their own.

"I should get going. See you in a few minutes." Talia left quickly, trying to ensure that she hid that disturbing thought from Lyta.

Talia entered Captain Sheridan’s office. She glanced around and saw that Doctor Franklin, Michael Garibaldi, and Susan were already there with the Captain."Well, is Lyta coming?" Sheridan asked abruptly.

"Yes, she will be here soon, but we thought that I shouldn’t be seen with her, in case I can keep on seeming loyal to the Corps for now."

Sheridan nodded and turned back to fidgeting with something on his desk.

Lyta entered quickly. "Well, let’s do this," she said,

"Start with me," Sheridan said. "I can't ask anyone to do this if I won't."

Talia watched as Lyta sent the password and turned away shaking her head. "You’re clean."

Talia watched Susan staying away from the others, she could clearly sense her discomfort, although Susan was avoiding looking at her. Talia was vaguely aware of Lyta following up with scans on the Franklin and Garibaldi. Talia’s breath caught as Garibaldi reacted, his face contorting under the signal. She was so shocked, wondering what she should do as his hands covered his face. She remembered his flirting with her and wondered if had all been a ruse of some sort – a test of loyalty to Psi Corps. She felt cold through – she was doomed – she had fallen into the traps he had set.

"Boo! Got you!" He uncovered his face, back to normal.

Talia let out a breath, almost a sob, almost a laugh – she felt as if she was shaking from the tension. Lyta turned towards Susan, but Sheridan started to say something, but Talia spoke quickly,

"I’ll do it for you if you’d prefer, Susan."

She hoped that Susan would say yes, after all they had been close, but knew that if she was the spy she would say no, and she was afraid that her heart would break at that.

Susan hesitated, and Talia used that moment to get the password mentally from Lyta. After a long silence, or probably not that long, but it seemed to stretch out forever, Susan said, "Yes."

Talia could tell how much that word cost her, and so quickly sent the password, dreading the result, but nothing happened.

"She’s clean." Talia said, astonished that her voice sounded steady. "What now?"

Lyta turned to look at her, surprise showing on her face. Talia wondered whether Lyta had picked up her suspicions or whether she had her own reasons for suspecting Susan.

"Now we start on the other C&C personnel and those in Security." Captain Sheridan said.

"I should leave now," Talia said. "My usefulness to you relies on people not knowing that I'm betraying the Corps."

She turned towards the door, thinking quickly. She had realised something from sending the message into Susan’s mind: it had seemed too easy, as easy as sending to another telepath; she didn’t know what to say, but knew enough not to say anything in front of other people, especially Lyta, who she didn’t feel that she could trust at the moment.

Talia went about the day’s meetings with more than half her mind on the hunt for the spy, wishing that she could know what was going to, but knowing that she had to wait for news. Thankfully, it was all routine minor business and diplomatic meetings, nothing that required her full attention or very much in the way of her skills. Following the last meeting, she exchanged pleasantries with the business man who had hired her, then left to look for Susan, as subtly as she could.

She went round to the casino, knowing that Susan often went there after the end of her shift and she should have finished her shift about half an hour ago, however she was not there. Talia considered giving up, but the idea of waiting longer for news stretched her nerves dreadfully. She walked slowly and as casually as she could managed to Susan's quarters. Talia rang the bell on Susan’s door and waited. After a moment that seemed to stretch out interminably the door opened.

"Come in," Susan said, "I was just making tea. Would you like a cup?"

"Yes please." Talia sat down, relieved that she was at least partially welcome, but unsure whether it would last, and said, "Did they find a spy?"

"No. We’ve been through all of the C&C personnel, security and everyone with seniority in the other departments. Sheridan thinks it must have been Garibaldi’s second, you know - the one who shot him, just before-"

"Yes," Talia interrupted quickly, trying not to remember.

"If there was ever a spy at all," Talia opened her mouth to protest. "I’m not accusing Lyta of lying, but the Psi Corps could have leaked the information deliberately, to fool people into paranoia. Anyway, if there is a spy elsewhere, it would be no more than might be expected. We’ll just have to be careful who to trust and hope that luck follows. Also, at least this way Psi Corps won't know we're onto them."

"That's possible, but remember that the spy may not know they are a spy."

Susan handed over a cup of tea and sat down at the opposite end of the sofa. "Yes, but I’m more concerned about Nightwatch. You can see why? Didn’t you go to one of their meetings?"

Talia nodded.

"But I didn’t join. The fact that they were offering money for nothing seemed to imply that something nasty was to come."

"Yes, obviously they will expect something in the future, and the name has very bad connotations. I think I should check who has joined for now, and watch out as they will turn into overt spies as time goes on."

Talia didn’t ask about the connotations, but made a mental note to research it, as she was aware that there was so much that she didn’t know, being around Susan made her realise how naive she had been, and probably still was. Psi Corps seemed to try to hide so much from its members and mostly succeeded.

"Look, Susan. I didn’t mean to pry, but I noticed something when sending the message." Talia watched, feeling pain and sadness as Susan’s face closed, as she was speaking, "Look – I’m sorry. I promise I won’t tell anyone."

Susan nodded sharply.

"Please, this doesn’t have to ruin things between us. I was so scared that you were the spy – I don’t want to lose you. I promise not to try and persuade you of anything, or look into your mind." Talia realised that she was babbling and stopped herself from saying more, waiting for any reply, knowing that this wasn’t the time to try and tell Susan how wonderful it could be to share minds in a relationship.

After a few minutes during which Talia tried very hard not to speak, Susan said, "I guess I should trust you. After all if you noticed it from this, but not before, it really means you must not have peeked into my mind up to now."

"Of course, I haven’t."

"So we can continue as normal, but won’t the Psi Cops find out next time one of them is here?"

"Bester didn’t find out about what Ironheart did to me, or see through the illusion with the rogue telepaths. I seemed to be able to control how much and what he could see much more than before and he didn't seem to suspect anything."

"Impressive! I thought keeping a Psi Cop out was supposed to be impossible for a telepath."

"Not entirely, but impossible to do so without them realising. However, if they did a deep scan on me they would find it out, along with everything else." Talia paused.

"Well, in that case, I suppose the only option is to keep them from suspecting you, and for you to be ready to run, if needed. The Captain will help."

"Why would he?" Talia knew that getting other people involved would be a problem, after all why would they go out of their way for her and risk the wrath of the Psi Cops?

"I talked to him. There is something going on, and has been going on for a while, and we were thinking of bringing you in on it, but then you’d have enough information to bring all of us down."

Talia nodded, wondering what this was about – her mind jumped to Garibaldi’s discovery of the conspiracy against the President's life and the fact that nothing seemed to have been reported on ISN about it, she tried to think of the right words to say, but couldn't, but she said,

"Look, I trust you. If you are doing something illegal, I believe that you would only be doing it for a very good reason."

Susan nodded, seeming to understand what she was trying to say. "Do you remember General Hague’s visit?"

Talia shook her head, wondering who General Hague was.

"Okay, well, he visited a couple of months ago. He talked to the Captain and confirmed that there are others who have suspicions about the President's death. Sheridan told Mr Garibaldi, Dr Franklin and me; we’ve been looking for evidence. Given that Psi Corps endorsed Clark, we all expected that they might be involved, and therefore hesitated to bring you in, even after you had partially broken with them."

"You don’t need to justify it. I can see why you wouldn't. What changed your mind?"

"The fact that you didn't turn Lyta over to the Corps, as well as what you did to save Doctor Franklin from Bester. Anyway, welcome to the conspiracy! Having your help could be useful, although we’ll try not to ask you to do anything you’d be unhappy with."

"Thank you. I am prepared to break Psi Corps rules – just I’d rather not mostly, especially scan anyone unwilling, but we can discuss specific cases later. However, the more I break their rules the more likely they are to catch me."

"Well, at any point, you can always say no."

"Has Lyta gone now?"

"Yes. I don’t know where, but Sheridan is waiting a while before telling anyone she was here."

"I should tell Psi Corps that she was here – to keep them from suspecting me. I’ll say that I didn’t see her but heard rumors."

"Very sensible."

Talia felt warmed by the approval in Susan's voice.

"I’m concerned about her. She said that she was going to try to get to the Vorlon Homeworld, and you know what they are like. I was wondering if Kosh did something to her mind when she scanned him, like planting a command to make her go there so that they could kill or control her."

Susan grimaced. "Well, he could have. None of us know what the Vorlons are capable of. Did she say anything about what she saw in Kosh’s mind?"

"No. Do you remember last year, during all the Deathwalker stuff, Kosh had me mediating some very odd negotiations? Garibaldi and Sinclair said that I have been tricked. I don’t think the Vorlons like telepaths, or don’t trust us or something." Talia stopped

"Yes. I don’t know. I suppose it is one more thing to keep an eye on for now, especially as there seems to be something going on with them and the Minbari, but I’m trying to work out the details of that. I’ll tell you about it when I’ve found out more." Susan leaned forward and touched Talia’s arm gently. "Anyway, Garibaldi has convinced Sheridan that we need you on our side, so he will be approaching you official, but I wanted to tell you."

Talia sipped her tea and let the conversation slide, thankful that she hadn’t ruined or lost what she and Susan had.

That evening, after putting it off by catching up on all her report and forms for the Corps and tidying her quarters, Talia finally got up the nerve to comm Bester. She punched in the access code that he had given her on his last visit to Babylon 5 and waited. After a moment that seemed to last much longer, the screen showed that the call had been accepted and changed to show his face.

"Ms Winters – Talia, to what do I own this pleasure?" He said smiling at her, she was very glad that he was unable to scan her through the screen and tried not to shiver at his smile, although she suspected that as a Psi Cop he was used to that reaction.

"You asked for any news of rogue telepaths that I found out. I don't know if this is exactly the case here, but I though that you would like to know anyway." She paused, trying to stop herself getting more tangled up.

"Yes, what has happened?" He sounded unpleasantly eager.

"Lyta Alexander was here, and from what I heard it sounded like she is no longer with the Corps. Apparently she said that she is on the run and trying to expose the Corps as manipulating politicians and important people in Earthforce. I don't know many details as I didn't see her, but she apparently was talking to the Command Staff and telling them that the Corps is not to be trusted."

"Really! She escaped from the Corps. She had become mentally unstable after scanning that Vorlon, so she was being detained for her own good. Perhaps you can tell them that and they will disregard whatever she said."

"I will try, but I'm not sure that it will work. They are already nervous about telepaths, as you probably remember from your visits. I'll try, but I fear that they are more likely to remember lies that feed their paranoia than the simple truth." Talia took a breath, and hoped that she hadn't gone too far – she needed to keep Bester from suspecting that she was deceiving him.

"Just do your best. I know dealing with mundanes is hard. Try and convince them that the Corps means them no harm. Thank you. Please inform me if anything more occurs, I'd like to know about what is happening there – whatever you can find out without compromising you position. It won't be forgotten." He moved to close the link.

She waited until it was closed and then sank down onto her sofa, shaking with relief – it seemed that he had not suspected anything.

"I'd rather you did forgot," She said to thin air, "I'd sooner you forgot I existed at all!"

She wondered how long she could keep this up, how long her luck would last. She felt restless and so cut off, the Corps had been a family to her for as long as she could remember properly – she had vague memories of her birth family, but very little. She paused for a moment, wondering if she should go and look for Susan, but expected that she would be working.

After a moment, she thought of Alisa – they had exchanged several letters, as the Minbari hadn't wanted her to use the comm until her training was complete, but in her latest letter she had said that she was now allowed to. Talia looked at the time, but then called up a program to tell her what the time would now be in Tuzanor. It would be mid evening there. She thought that this might be a good time to try calling Alisa, but then she realised with a sick jolt that it wouldn't be secure – she had access to Psi Corp's encryption for the normal channels for her reporting, but she couldn't use that to talk to Alisa. Talia went tempted to comm anyway, but realised that Bester was probably keeping a track of all of her communications, and so she would just be putting herself, and Alisa, in more danger.

She thought about writing a letter – that was secure from Bester at least, given that she gave it directly to Delenn, or her aide, and they sent it on to Minbar in the diplomatic bag. However, Alisa had implied that she suspected the letters were being read somewhere in between them, and so it would just be changing one set of problems for another.

***

As he was going about his duties, Zack found his conversation with Garibaldi about the Nightwatch haunted his thoughts, but had no idea what he could do. He couldn't think of anyone to talk to – everyone who knew about Nightwatch was in it, or was much higher in rank than him. He wished there was someone he could ask about it.

As he was returning to report to Garibaldi after investigating another few incidents of theft in the Zocalo, he got into a turbolift and found Talia Winters there. He glanced at her and remembered seeing her at the first meeting about the Nightwatch, but not at any of the later meetings. He hesitated for a moment, then decided that he had to risk it.

"Ms Winters." Zack fidgeted as he spoke, worried that he was making a big mistake. "Look I wanted to ask you something. Please don’t be annoyed."

She turned to face him in the Turbolift. "Yes." She sounded cross, he thought about giving up.

"I saw you at the meeting given by Mr Macabee for the Nightwatch, but you didn’t join, and Garibaldi seems to think I am doing something wrong by joining." He paused to catch breath and to try and work out how to ask the question he was thinking of.

She smiled slightly at him, relaxing, he wondered what she had though he was going to say.

"Look, Mr Allen, it is up to you whether you stay in Nightwatch or not, but it is the kind of organisation that worries people. After all they are offering you benefits for nothing. Surely you can see that it won’t last? What will they ask for in return? By then it will be too late to get out safely, if it is not already."

The turbolift stopped and she nodded to him and got out. Zack looked after her, thinking about what she had said, and wondering if she was right, or if she was just being cynical. He shook his head slightly as the turbolift started up again and wished that her advice had been clearer.

***

Talia and Susan met, as had become their habit, for dinner in Susan's quarters. Talia had bought the food in the Zocalo on the way back from her last meeting of the day. She had set up the table before Susan arrived. Talia noticed that Susan seemed to be slightly amused, which was a good change, given how dire things had been recently with the Narn-Centauri War overshadowing everything.

"Is something going on?" Talia asked as the sat down at the table.

"Yes. Well, in a way, Garibaldi and Sheridan thinking that they are being very clever and sneaky – however, they are being far less subtle that they imagine."

"Oh, do tell." Talia smiled, amused by it; Susan seemed determined to know everything that was going on no matter how secret it was and it didn't surprise Talia that she had managed to find out the secrets that the others were hiding.

"There are people called Rangers coming here and passing through. They are based on Minbar, apparently answering to Commander, or I should say Ambassador, Sinclair. It seems that they are the Minbari equivalent of an intelligence service, but now include humans as well, acting toward the goals for whatever Delenn is planning. They have been coming through here for a while, trying to keep a low profile, but it seems that they are helping us get information about the Narn-Centauri War. Anyway, I'm not supposed to know anything is going on, but they mostly gathered here yesterday for Sheridan to meet them. I believe it was about thirty five of them, a mixture of humans and Minbari."

"Reporting to Sinclair? That surprises me! I received a letter from Alisa recently and she didn't mention anything about them although she apparently visited Sinclair. I had told her he had been reassigned to Minbari and she said she had met with him and that he seemed to be doing well, but nothing about him leading an intelligence service."

"Well, she might not know, or she might have been asked not to tell you, as is supposed to be a secret."

"I just worry that she might be thinking about getting involved if she knows. She is young enough to think it would be an adventure."

"She might, but remember she is a lot more grown up than you were at her age. She has been looking after herself. It is her choice if she wants to do something dangerous or adventurous. Besides, I'm sure that Sinclair would not let her go into danger unless she knew what she was getting into."

"I know, just I can't help worrying about her."

Susan nodded, "I understand, but you can't protect her from everything and she is probably as safe as she can be, if she want to be. I can't see her being put into danger unwilling by whoever Delenn has arranged to train her."

"True, they seem to be a very protected and protective people, the Minbari Religious Caste. It seems that they are protected from everything at home, although I must admit it makes their society even more incomprehensible as they are also the diplomats, although I've been hired by many of their traders who are Worker Caste. I wonder what Alisa really thinks of them – most of her letters sounded rather guarded. I wish I could comm her, but I realised that it isn't safe to."

"There are ways in which it could be made to be – let me arrange that for you," Susan said, smiling at her. "Is there any alien society that isn't secretive? But then again, we don't exactly invite them to see into all the depths of our society."

"I suppose not. I've been trying to find out more about Narn society (this reminded me for some reason) with their trying to recruit Alisa, and Lyta, from what the rest of you said, I wondered what was going on with Narn telepaths, because there is some tradition of them existing. Although now..."

"Found anything interesting?" Susan asked.

Talia noticed that she didn't seem to be very interested, as she got up and started tidying up the dishes.

"Not much yet – most of the information is in their various holy books that are never translated and written in impenetrable language. However, I am making some progress slowly." Talia reached for her cup and finished drinking her coffee.

Susan took the cup and washed it, before saying, "I should sleep. Who knows, I might actually get a full night's sleep for once." She came over and kissed Talia softly.

"I'll come to bed as well, if you want." Talia said with a smile.

***

The following afternoon, Talia had finished her meetings early, for a change, and returned to her quarters. She found a physical letter from Susan with detailed instructions for how to make a vitually undetectable comm – Susan noted that Garibaldi would be able to detect it, but that she had warned him not to and ensured that he was on duty from mid afternoon to mid-evening and that he would try to ensure that no one else might be trying to detect it. Talia made herself a cup of tea, then followed the instructions carefully and finally a connection was made.

***

Alisa was sitting in her room in the Ranger compound, or temple as it seemed to be, on Minbar. She had her handcomp in front of her, working to try and gain fluency of the second of the Minbari languages. She had already learnt Adronato since she had arrived over a year ago, but Sinclair was encouraging her to learn the Warrior Caste's language as well. She looked around her room, enjoying the privacy. During the start of her time here she had had to share, but since Ruth had finished her training a month ago and as there had been no new female human trainees, she had the room to herself for now. The light on the comm screen blinking, signifying an incoming call. She got up and looked at the information. It was coming from Babylon 5 and thus from either Susan or Talia, as they were the only people she had told the number to. She accepted the call and waiting to see who would appear on the screen.

"Talia." She said, smiling, as her image appeared.

"Hello Alisa. It is good to see that you are looking well."

Alisa wondered how to respond, as it didn't seem like she could say the same. "Hi Talia. How are you?"

Talia hesitated, and Alisa wondered why – what had been going on to make her look so haunted.

"Things have been hard here. I'm glad you chose to go there, rather than join the Corps." The last words came out in a rush.

"What happened?" Alisa knew she sounded surprised, but that was only to be expected last year Talia had been telling her how good the Corps was and how they would look after her, and now this!

"Various things. I ended up helping some of the unregistered telepaths, and renegades from the Corps, escape, and they told me about some of the things that the Corps had been up to. It makes me very glad that you are away from it all, and somewhere safe."

Alisa was shocked by the first part and let that show, hiding her reaction to the second part. It seemed that Talia would not be happy if she explained how she had acted, putting herself into a situation where she would be going into danger, instead of staying safely on Minbar, but as she should not tell Talia she said nothing about that.

"Are you sure that it is safe to be telling me this?"

"Susan says that she's set it up so that there shouldn't be any way for anyone to detect this transmission."

Alisa nodded and relaxed slightly, she trusted Susan's paranoia.

"Did the Corps punish you for it?"

"No, they haven't found out that I was involved. Somehow I managed to fool a Psi Cop. I don't really know how. Anyway, what's it like on Minbar?"

Alisa noticed that Talia quick change of the subject but let her, although she was curious very curious.

"Well, cold, serious and dull, really. Delenn arranged for me to stay in a small temple just outside Tuzanor to learn what she thinks I need to learn. It isn't a major centre of training, but they seem to think that it would be easier for me to be accepted where there are fewer people – something about how if they have to interact closely with me the unfamiliar becomes familiar."

Talia smiled at that. "That sounds like the Minbari. It seems that Delenn thinks that you are furthering her agenda by being there, as well as protecting you from the Corps. She seems to be focusing a lot on trying to make friends, or something, with Captain Sheridan. I've seen them together on several occasions that looked more social than official."

"She certainly seems to be trying to bring humans and Minbari closer together – although Sheridan seems to be an odd place to start from what I've heard other Minbari say about him. Anyway, the training mostly seems to focus on control through meditation. They seem to believe that meditation will solve most problems, but there are also teaching me how to scan people and sort for information, and interesting techniques on how to find the information I require from someone's mind without intruding on things that I don't need to see."

"I wonder if the techniques that they teach are the same as the ones Psi Corps uses. You should visit here sometime and we can compare them – perhaps we'll both learn more."

"Yes." Alisa said with a smile, the idea of visiting Babylon 5 was very nice. She looked forward to it, although she would have to finish her training first, but that shouldn't take much longer. "Apart from that, everything is rituals – there are so many rituals, and they insist that I must learn all of them, and every meal has its own ritual. Each lesson starts with one." She could hear her annoyance seeping through into her voice.

"It sounds rather dull, but presumable when you have finished your training you will be able to ignore that."

Alisa smiled, thinking of her actual training at that point, "True, although as long as I am living here I will probably have to follow some of the rituals. After all I wouldn't want to offend my hosts, as I am sure that it will only be due to continuing influences that I am allowed to remain here."

Talia nodded. "Are you making friends? Are you happy?"

"Yes, some. It is hard to make friends with Minbari, but I'm trying and it seems to be working." She didn't mention her human friends – after all it would be hard to explain to Talia where she had met them without telling her more than she was allowed to know. "I suppose I'm happy, a bit bored, but I have enough to eat and somewhere okay to live, so it is better than living in Downbelow."

"That's good. Remember your training won't last for ever and then you will be able to have more freedom."

Alisa nodded, think how shocked Talia would be when she found out what Alisa would be doing once her training was completed.

"I should go. I have work to do before the morning. It was good to talk to you."

"And to you. Please write to me more if you can – I like to know how you are getting on." Talia closed the connection.

Alisa sank down into her seat, smiling, amusing by the conversation and how easy it had been to hide things, although she wished she could tell Talia. Thinking about it she decided to talk to Sinclair soon to find out whether she could tell or whether she had to hide everything until her training was complete.

She thought back to how she had ended up in the Ranger training. It had started with the letters she had written to Talia from the temple. She turned to her drawer and got out the first one to re-read.

 _

Dear Talia,

_

 _I am now on Minbar. Ambassador Delenn has arranged for me to stay at a small temple near Tuzanor, for my training. There are a few other telepaths here, apparently a lot of temples train them, but she thought it best that I stay away from most of them – they seem to welcome me here a little, more the longer I stay, I suppose. Anyway, I'm learning all the things you said that I should, but it is very dull here – ceremonies for everything, and all this talk of doing good, but it is a very nice place and I have plenty to eat and some new clothes. They say that I can have more when I have finished training. Anyway, they say I can't have access to their tech until I finish training as learning to use it will distract me from my studies. However, they say that I can write letters and these will be brought to you without them reading it._

 _Alisa_

She smiled at the words, remembering how miserable and suspicious she had felt. She had been certain that the letter was going to be read by at least her supervisor at the temple and probably by Ambassador Delenn as well, but that seemed to have not been the case. She remembered writing drafts telling Talia how unhappy she was and how working with Minbari was so off-putting as they were all so serious the whole time and looked down on her every mistake. She had burned the drafts that she had come up with before managing to write something that she was prepared to let them read, and then waiting for them to say anything about it, but it hadn't happened.

She pulled out the letter that she had got in reply, and skim read it, her eyes picking out the relevant sentances – it had taken a few weeks to get to her.

 _

Dear Alisa,

_

 _Thank you for you letter. I'm sorry to hear that you are bored at the temple – but you probably won't have to stay there much longer, if you are learning as quickly as you say._

 _..._

 _Commander Sinclair has been transferred to Minbar, perhaps you could visit him and talk to him. He might be able to help you._

 _..._

 _Love_

 _Talia_

Alisa had been determined to act on the advice in the letter, but it had taken a while for it to be possible – partly because she wasn't prepared to just ask for permission. Looking back she wondered how she had survived and what the teachers must have thought of her, as she was hardly prepared to trust any of them with anything, even her questions. She thought back to the day when she had finally acted, and smiled at how unaware she had been of how much it would change her life.

Alisa had paused outside the crystal and stone building, looking at the waterfalls for a moment. She had arranged to come into the city to go shopping, as a cover for the visit to Sinclair. She had not wanted to tell her minders what she was doing, especially as they already were concerned about her being on her own in the city for a few hours. However after about three hours of advice on shops, behaviour, and warnings, they had reluctantly agreed to it. After living in Downbelow on Babylon 5 alone, she found all the care stifling.

She took a deep breath and entered the building. It had taken her a few moments to find his location in the directory and then to find the physical location corresponding to it. She had walked for the best part of an hour to get there. It was large, some kind of temple. She knew if she read the writing on the walls she would find out more, but it didn't seem worth the effort. She entered and bowed slightly to the young Minbari who walked towards her from an internal courtyard.

"I wish to speak with Commander Sinclair."

"I believe that Ambassador Sinclair is busy this afternoon. If you would leave your name and contact details, a meeting may be arranged for another time."

Alisa could read the implied message that this would only happen if she was deemed worthy of his time.

"I am only able to see him today, please ask him for me. Tell him that Alisa Beldon is here and would like to talk to him." She said, looking challengingly at him.

She knew what the Minbari religious caste were like, if she didn't insist he would assume that she was unimportant. Among Minbai for someone as unimportant as her to be rude and insist on a meeting was unthinkable, although the fact that he hesitated might suggest he knew more about humans – not surprising really.

She took the opportunity of his hesitation to walk past him into the garden and to sit down on one of the benches there, looking out over the flower beds, waiting for him to decide. She glanced back and saw him follow her, then go further into the complex. She got out her handcomp with the work that she had brought with her, after all she didn't know how long she would have to wait. She turned back to the verb tables. Her instructors were firm that she had to learn at least the three main Minbari languages fluently before they would consider her training complete.

She was not sure how much time had passed before she was disturbed. "Ms Beldon."

She looked up startled to see Sinclair standing there. She quickly put the grammar away and stood up. He gestured to her to sit down again and sat at the other end of the bench. "Ambassador Sinclair."

"How are you? Is this a social call or about your training?" He said smiling slightly at her. "I wondered if I would see you after I was transferred here."

"A bit of both. Talia said that you were here and suggested that I might visit you."

"How is she?"

"Well, as far as I can tell, she seems to be happy." Alisa thought of telling him about what she suspected about the relationship between Talia and Susan from Susan's letters, but wasn't sure if it was a good idea. "You haven't been in contact with anyone there?"

"Not really – it is complicated. Politics and so on. I didn't know that you had been in contact the anyone, although I would have thought that Susan and Talia would like to know what you were up to."

Alisa nodded. "Yes, I have had a few letters from each of them. I haven't been allowed to comm – apparently learning to use the Minbari version of the controls would distract me from my lessons."

He smiled at that. "So what do your teachers have to say about your coming here?"

"They don't know. I persuaded them to let me come into the city today to go shopping, then looked you up in one of the public directories and came here to talk to you. I know I shouldn't lie to them, but I don't think they would have let me come."

"That is likely. Although it depends on exactly how sympathetic they are to Ambassador Delenn's objectives and how much she has actually told them."

Alisa nodded, then plunged into what she had come to say, "I know I chose this, and I would still prefer to stay there than go to Psi Corps or the Narn, but it is so dull. I'm trying really hard to learn and behave, but nothing happens. I've learnt how to control my talent, but they say that I have to learn Minbari languages properly and Religious Caste ceremonies and culture before they will consider my training complete. Also, anything else that they think of – at the moment they are teaching me geometry and you can imagine how much fun that is in base eleven!"

He nodded sympathetically. "If you are to stay here, it is what you will need to fit in. They want you to become Minbari in every way you can."

"I know that. However, from what I saw on the War Cruiser on the way here, that isn't totally true – my teachers don't just want me to be Minbari but to be specifically Religious Caste. The Warrior Caste's way of life is different, but still part of Minbar, but from what I can understand the Religious Caste knows less about it than I do. I was wondering if there could be another choice for me. I know there are other choices for telepaths. On my way here, I was being supervised, or guarded, or something, by a telepath who is stationed on the Ingata. He was telling me a bit about what Warrior Caste telepaths do, especially with regards for foretelling the future and predicting short term events. I don't know whether I can do that, but I think I might be able to and it is apparently not something that the Religious Caste believe in or that they believe that I can do." She paused, to draw breath, and try to speak more objectively.

"What is it that you would like to do? I don't know whether it is possible, but if you tell me I will try and help you."

"Not to be treated like a child. I lived on my own in Downbelow, I know how to look after myself, I don't need someone checking everything I do and monitoring what I eat and so on." She stopped, knowing that keeping on complaining about too many specifics would make her seem less grown up to him.

"I see. But in the longer term?"

"Adventure, to travel. Yes, I'd like to be doing something useful, but the idea of spending all my life without leaving one small area and dealing with trivia doesn't appeal."

He looked at her while she was saying this, then seemed to be thinking deeply. She started to say more, but he held up his hand and so she remained silent. After a few moments he spoke, "Listen, perhaps there is a way. I will have to speak to your teachers first. I need to know for certain that your telepathic talents have been trained, at least far enough that you are in control, but I'll make my own conclusions from their reports. If that is the case, you might be able to stay here and train as a Ranger. Have you learnt anything about Rangers?"

"A little. They are some sort of special sect trained to fight in the war that some people think is coming, They renounce other ties to Caste and Clan. That's all I know."

"Well, it is a good start. They are training to be agents, intelligence finders, as well as fighters and more. Now that I am in charge humans have been allowed to join. The Minbari brought me here to lead them, although EarthGov doesn't know that. If you think you would like to join, I'll have one of them show you around and explain more about the training."

"Thank you. Yes." Alisa tried to speak calmly, but she felt her excitement leak into her voice.

He stood up and went to the door and spoke to someone outside, after a moment he returned. "Wait here for now. One of the trainees will be here soon to show you around. At this point they won't tell you everything, but it should be enough for you to make an informed decision."

She took out her handcomp and started reviewing the verbs as she waited, but was aware that it was only a few minutes.

A young women approached. She had dark hair cut into a bob around a face that Alisa thought looked like it would be cheerful most of the time, but now looked grim. Alisa wondered how she had ended up here. She looked older than Alisa, possibly in her mid twenties.

"Hello. You must be Alisa. I'm Ruth Hunterly. I've been sent to show you around. Are you coming to train here?"

"Hello. Possibly. Ambassador Sinclair is considering whether he will allow me to and wants me to know more before I make a final decision."

"I hope you will. I'm the only female human trainee here at the moment – I only started a week ago. Most of the trainees are Minbari and rather standoffish. Anyway, I'll show you around here – not that there is really a lot to see, well, unless you are fascinated by temples or architecture."

"Not really. Will you tell me about the actually training?"

"Well, I can only tell you what I know. You seem rather young for this. For most of us the training only lasts a few months, then danger and so on. Have you been given the speech about danger and walking into dangerous places, not seeking glory or danger, but not shying away from danger?"

"Not yet. Anyway, I know I'm only fifteen, but I'm used to looking after myself. My parents died and I was living on my own on Babylon 5, in a lurker area as I hadn't much money for food or lodgings."

"I'm sorry. No relatives to take care of you?"

"No, after my parents left Earth looking for work. My mother's family disowned her and my father didn't have any close relatives – the war."

Ruth nodded, grimacing lightly, "You'll probably do well here then. I certainly wouldn't have liked to do that at your age. But then I had a nice childhood" She paused for a moment and Alisa could feel her sadness, but before she could ask, Ruth went on, "Just now ready to be involved in this."

Alisa could tell there was a story there and she wondered if she could ask about it, but Ruth went on, "Anyway, come this way. I'll start by showing you the gym and so forth – obviously there is a big focus on physical fitness as well as fighting skills. Being able to run away when possible rather than fight is encouraged."

At the end of the tour, Alisa was brought to Ambassador Sinclair's office, he turned to look at her as she entered alone. Ruth waited outside for her. "So?"

"I want to stay." She said, as she sat down in front of his desk. "I understand a bit about what I will be doing and what I am signing up for."

"Very well. I have spoken to your teachers and they agree that you have learnt all that they can teach you about your psi skills, although they believe that you could do more with advanced training, which they can not provide. You could get that at a larger temple. However, there the teachers would be less inclined to overlook any actions that did not follow their cultural expectations. I will get them to send over your belongings."

"Thank you."

"I'll get a schedule sorted out for you, but in the meanwhile, I've arranged for you to be tested to see what level you are at in the physical skills that are trained here, and to be issued with equipment and clothing."


	2. Chapter 2

Talia took advantage of the break between meetings to head down to the Zocalo for lunch. She settled in one of the small cafés to order food. She put in her order and drank of her fruit juice while waiting for the food to arrive. She looked around, watching all the people – shopping, meeting up, chatting. She smiled slightly, in some ways it was nice to feel the general brush of everyone's thoughts against her barriers after a morning spent in tables surrounded by privacy barriers; at least here it was easier not to hear any particular person's thoughts and to feel less cut off from everyone.

"Talia, mind if I join you?"

She turned, surprised, as she hadn't noticed Susan approaching.

"Of course I don't mind," She said, smiling.

Susan sat down and had a quick look at the menu before ordering and casually engaged the privacy screen. Talia noticed the cafe had the newer system without visual effects.

"Quiet day?"

"Mostly, for a change. Just routine traffic at the moment, so I was doing a little digging into things."

"Anything in particular?" Talia asked lightly, assuming that it was something interesting as Susan had mentioned it, and that it wasn't too secret to tell her about.

"Remember what you were saying to me about Lyta and the Vorlons? Well, there is something else. Yesterday a Vorlon transport arrived, but Ambassador Kosh hadn't left the station. Captain Sheridan knew something about it as he went down to see to its arrival personally. Anyway, I tapped into the security feed and a human got out of it. He looked like he has taken out of history, probably European, somewhere from the eightenth to twenty-first century – I'm not good at remembering details of clothes styles. Anyway, later that day, after he got back from Medlab where he and Delenn were treated for mysterious injuries, Sheridan got me to check out a name and address in the Earth history files."

"What did you find?" Talia asked, shivering slightly, "Do you think they could have taken him from Earth and kept him alive for this long somehow?"

"I don't know, possibly, or cloned him, or something. Anyway, the person's record showed that he vanished mysteriously after a string of murders in year. So then he apparently re-appears here and is torturing Ambassador Delenn at the instigation of the Vorlons and Sheridan goes along with it."

Talia shivered, she could feel that Susan was scared, "Do you think they are going to do that to Lyta?"

She tried not to cry, thinking of Lyta being treated like that. She wished that she could reach out to Susan, but she dared not do so in public where any one could see them.

"I don't know. It seems possible. What they would use her for? Given what you said about her, I doubt she would be much use to them as a torturer." Susan tried to smile, but Talia could sense her disturbed feelings.

The server brought over their food. Talia was glad to drop the subject while they ate.

After she had eaten some of her salad, Susan said, "Anyway, apart from that, today there are more arguments among the League ambassadors, demanding that the Pak'Ma'Ra be moved away from everyone else's quarters as they are such bad neighbours. This time it was the Abbai protesting, even though they are several corridors away, claiming that they can smell the food that the Pak'Ma'Ra have rotting."

"Well, it wouldn't surprise me," Talia said around a mouthful of lettuce, "I'm glad I don't live near any of them."

"True, but try arguing air currents with all of them. I've referred it up to the Captain. Let him do his own diplomacy this time!"

"I was thinking that Delenn seems to be close to the Vorlons, despite whatever is going on at the moment, and Captain Sheridan seems to be getting very close to her."

"But can we trust the Vorlons?" Susan interrupted, but Talia didn't mind as it was almost exactly what she had been going to say.

"Exactly. There just seem to be so many odd things about them."

"Well, we've never been able to understand them, but now they are going beyond mysterious into sinister."

Talia nodded.

"I think we have to be careful and keep an eye on them as much as much as we can. I think we'd better keep this to ourselves for now, although I might have a word with Garibaldi if I can think of how to phrase it." Susan said softly.

"Because he is suspicious of everyone?"

"Yes, and has sources that neither of us do, but I'll be careful. Anyway, I should get back to C&C."

"See you later."

Talia watched as she walked away. She looked down at the rest of her salad, but wasn't particularly hungry, although it seemed a waste to leave it, although she supposed that the cafe would probably add it to other food to sell to the Pak'Ma'Ra. With a sigh she got up to the go to her next meeting.


	3. Chapter 3

About a week later, Talia was sitting in her quarters, idly watching a vid, looking forward to a quiet evening She knew Susan was busy, intending to spend the evening catching up on paperwork that had to be done before the end of the year and it was easier for her to work when Talia wasn't there as a distraction. Then the door opened, she looked up, knowing who to expect as she had only given her codes to one other person. She felt Susan's anger as she entered and Talia quickly reinfornced her shields, determined not to spy on Susan.

"What's wrong?"

Susan waited for the door to close completely, then said, "Nightwatch! I just had Mr Welles in my quarters talking about how I could be a ship captain sooner if I would spy on Captain Sheridan for him!" She paced around, Talia wondered if she was looking for something to hit, remembering her beating up the cupboard in her quarters.

"What do you expect?" Talia asked dryly, "Surely you know they would want someone as high up as possible, but I doubt they'd expect that Sheridan would go along with it..."

"He certainly wouldn't. You should hear him on their attitude about the Centauri!"

"Exactly, so you are the best person for them to approach; they have no reason to assume that you wouldn't help them."

"Well, I won't and I've told him so. Nasty little toad. Let them put that on my record if they dare!"

"I hope you weren't too rude. I think they will be bad enemies."

"Well, they are already our enemy. After all their role appears to be to make everyone support the President blindly, and you know what I think about that. I'm just glad you weren't there. I don't want to give them any more ammunition against me, or to put you into danger, although I expect they'll target you as well."

"The Corps already have. They asked me go to one of the first Nightwatch meetings, but I wasn't going to sign up for anything! I haven't heard any more, but I suspect that is because Bester wants me to get trusted by Command staff, and he is smart enough to see that this would work against that."

"Certainly, if he has any sense."

Susan flopped on the safe next to her, seemingly calming down."What are you watching?"

***

Talia hurried towards the garden, as she had heard that Captain Sheridan was going to apologise to the Centauri. She wondered what Susan would think of that and why he would do so, she supposed that it must be an order given all that Susan had told her. She looked around, then went out into the gardens. She could see where all the Ambassadors were gathered, she walked towards them, slowly, keeping back, but trying to get within hearing distance without being too noticeable.

She looked around to see where the Captain was, but could not see him anywhere. Surely he did not intend to be late, or perhaps he did, after all if he was doing this under protest he would probably have no motivation to do it well. She glanced upwards, for no reason. As she was looking, something exploded. She glanced up at the hull of the station, terrified to see it buckle and break, but it seemed to remain intact. Only then did she see the figure falling. She gasped, and looked away as she recognised Captain Sheridan.

She knew that there wouldn’t be time for rescuers to get there, and couldn't bear to see him die. She wished that she had learned more about how to use the telekinetic skill Jason had given her, but she didn’t dare try. She swallowed, then turned back to look, wondering if she should risk it. After all he would be dead if he hit the ground, but if she revealed her skill, then the Corps was sure to remove her from Babylon 5 and turn her inside out to find what she could do and why. She swallowed, unable to make any decision in the critical seconds.

Suddenly there was an angel rising towards him. She gasped, recognising the figure from the pictures in the Bible her parents had had, although until that moment she hadn't remembered it, but then looking at the figure it seemed to changed – going through different forms for each of the races present. She focused on it mentally, and suddenly knew with absolute certainty that it was Kosh. She moved back to lean against a wall, trying to understand.

Kosh and Sheridan came down towards the ground, it seemed that they touched down out of sight of everyone. She considered running towards them, as most of the others seemed to be doing but decided not to. She looked around for Susan, but realised quickly that the garden was not the place to talk about this. She left, crossing the station to Susan’s quarters, scarcely aware of her surroundings. She glanced around to check there was no one nearly, then typed in the access code and entered. She started making tea, hoping the Susan would return soon. Talia felt that she needed to tell someone what she had discovered.

It was very late that evening that Susan finally came back. She entered, tiredly. Talia looked up from the book that she had been reading.

"Where you there? In the garden, I mean," Susan asked as she sat down on the couch next to Talia

"Yes." Talia took a breath. "It was Kosh – the angel." The words didn’t seem to work very well, although she had been thinking of little else in the time that had passed.

"It was?" Susan looked amazed.

"I saw the angel to start with, then it was like an angel but Drazi, then Minbari, and so on. I focused completely on it, telepathically, and somehow I knew it was Kosh, but I don’t understand."

"Neither do I." Susan said, untieing her hair. "I wonder if it is why the Vorlons always hide; they have been influencing all the worlds and so they can’t appear as Vorlons without revealing it."

"But if they can appear in all those forms, why couldn’t they just appear in a different form if they wanted to hide?"

"I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with your ability to see through their appearance, maybe something of what they are makes their disguises not effective on telepaths."

Talia nodded, it did seem make some sense, but she was too tired to try and make more of it.

"It also makes sense of why you thought Kosh was playing with your mind before."

"So they have been influencing for the whole of human history? I don't know when angels appeared first in mythology or religion."

"Neither do I, but it was a long time ago. What a very disturbing thought!"

"Yes. I wish I knew why or what they were doing."

Susan nodded, then yawned. "Sorry, tired. Its been a long few days."

"Let's sleep, then." Talia got up and held out a hand to Susan. She took in and pulled herself up slowly.

***

Talia was sitting at the kitchen counter in Susan's quarters, working on a report for Bester on the recent events, while Susan was sitting on the sofa working on some sort of paperwork. They had ISN on it the background, as they both felt as if something was going to happen as the year ended. Talia kept glancing at it, wondering if anything else was going to happen; it seemed stupid, after all the Narn-Centauri war had finished, but after the ending of the last year, with the assassination of President Santiago, and everything else, it felt as if the turning of the year was unlucky on Babylon 5. Susan seemed to notice her distraction, probably because she seemed to share it.

"Waiting for the next crisis?"

"I don't know why, but it feels like something is going to happen."

"I hope not! Too much has gone wrong recently: the treaty with the Centauri; the end of the Narn-Centauri War; the bomb here; the disappearance of Keffer's Starfury…"

"What happened? You didn't tell me about that."

"Oh, he was helping escort the Narn cruiser away from here. He though he found something in hyperspace and went haring off after it. He's been obsessed with the ship he might have seen out there during the incident with the Cortez. Anyway, he didn't return and nothing has been found in the way of wreckage or anything, not that we've had the resources to search far."

Talia nodded.

"Anyway, I've been going through the records of everyone who works in C&C. I need to find out how Ambassador Molari found out about the Narn cruiser. I think it'd likely be from Nightwatch, but I can't get to the information on who is in Nightwatch. It doesn't seem to be in the personnel files at all." Susan sighed, and turned back to the files. "Although it must be linked somewhere as they are getting paid extra, but I haven't been able to access their pay records without leaving a trace that could be noticed."

"At the Nightwatch meeting there were a few people in Earthforce uniform, but I don't know if any of them work in C&C."

"I can show you their service photos, do you think you would recognise them?"

"I'll try." She got up, walked over to the sofa and sat down next to Susan.

She passed over the reader, showing a photo. Talia shook her head, Susan turned it to another page. Talia shook her head again. Susan changed it, but she seemed very tense, Talia looked at the screen, wondering if Susan suspected him, but he hadn't been at the meeting.

"No."

"Good." Susan turned it over again.

"Her – I'm sure she was there. I think she joined Nightwatch, she certainly seemed eager. Have you noticed if she is wearing one of their armbands?"

"No, but if anyone thought they were going to come into work out of uniform I'd set them straight right away. Right. I'll have to talk to the Captain about her. Let's check the rest to see if there is anyone else. Were there many people there?"

They continued through the pictures while talking.

"Quite a lot, most of them were in security and I have seen them wearing the armbands, including Mr Garibaldi's deputy – Zack – but he seems uncomfortable about it. He asked me about why I hadn't joined in a way that make me feel that he wanted out."

"That's interesting, it may help if we can work out how to use it. I think Garibaldi lets them wear the armbands so that he can see who the enemy is."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know. The Captain will be furious about it, but I don't know what we dare do with the current situation with the Ministry of Peace and the President. However, at least we will know not to trust her."

"None of the others were there, I think."

Talia glanced back at ISN. "Would you like to stay sitting here, so that you can keep an eye on it?"

"No. I'll just turn it off, if you don't mind." Talia turned to give the command, and froze.

An image had appeared on the screen. It must be a ship of some sort, but it looked like a spider, but huge and more rigid. She shivered. Susan got up put her arms around Talia, but they were both staring at the footage. After a moment, Talia realised that she had not heard what the reporter was saying. She swallowed, then trying to keep her voice even said,

"Shall I turn it off?"

"Yes, I think they've said all the know. That's footage from Keffer's Starfury, I recognise the codes. Look, I have to go and talk to the Captain. Will you be okay?"

"I expect so," Talia could hear her voice shake, but tried to smile.

Susan nodded, "I'll come back – you can stay here."

She hugged Talia quickly, Talia tried not to cling to her and felt Susan was doing the same. Talia stopped trying to write the report and curled up on the end of the sofa, staring at the blank screen. She tried to tell herself that there was nothing to be frightened of, but given that the ship seemed to have fired on the Starfury for no reason. She shivered. Then, stood up and paced around the room. She tried to stop the thoughts. She must calm down before Susan returned, as she already had enough to worry about without dealing with Talia having a breakdown. Talia swallowed, then moved to retrieve the book she was reading, determined to calm down and be a support for Susan in whatever was to come.

***

Ivanova left her quarters and quickly walked up to C&C. She was shaken by the footage and wondered where it fit into everything. She entered, and saw everyone watching the ISN feed, unsurprisingly. Captain Sheridan was there, and glanced across at her as she entered. He nodded towards his office and she followed him in. He closed the door behind them and sat down at his desk. She sat down in front of it.

"You saw the footage?" He asked, although his tone made it more a statement than a question.

"Yes. I don't know what the ship was, but the codes suggest that the footage is from Lieutenant Keffer's Starfury."

"Yes."

"Look, Sheridan, I think you know more that you are telling me. You ordered me to stop his expeditions into hyperspace and this must have been what he was looking for. I heard his descriptions of it."

"Yes, Susan, but I can't tell you more at this moment."

"Okay, but at least we need to decide what to do about Zeta Wing. It is clear that they need a new commander, and one of us needs to write to his next of kin. He has a girlfriend on Beta Colony."

"You knew him more than me and worked more closely with him, perhaps it would be better if you write the letter, then I'll sign it. As for a new commander..." He turned and pulled up a list of the current members of Zeta Wing. "Lieutenant Muto has seniority?"

"Yes, but I chose not to promote him last time. He is very cautious. He'll follow every order to the letter. Perhaps Lieutenant Walker would be better?"

"You know them better than me. If that is your recommendation, I'll go along with it. You'll arrange the paperwork for the necessary promotion and inform her of it? You'd also better make an announcement of Keffer's death to Zeta Wing."

"Yes."

"Any chance that we'll get a replacement for him soon?"

"I doubt it. I'm still try to get someone to replace Major Atumbe – was it?"

"Yes, we could really do with having more officers, even though it might be awkward with everything that is going on, unless the were people we could vouch for."

"Why did he leave, anyway? It was very abrupt from what I can tell. All the paperwork said was personal reasons?"

"His wife died, so he wanted an Earthside posting – didn't want to raise their kids in space. Got transferred to a safe desk job there."

"I've tried to speak to General Hague about how short staffed we are, but he told me that there are other priorities. He seemed to be implying that anyone we did get could not be trusted and it is better to be short staffed than to have more trouble."

"True. Which reminds me, we have a problem with that already."

"Someone must have told Mr Lantz about the Narn cruiser. I just don't know how we find out who it was. Somehow I don't expect he or Mr Welles will tell us."

"I have a suspect, but no real proof – not that we could really do much about it anyway."

"I'd like to Court Martial them, but somehow I doubt that we would be allowed to or that it would be sensible to try. Who is it and what evidence don't you have?"

"Lieutenant Madisan. Ms Winters identified her for me, she was at the meeting organised by Mr Macabee – the first meeting about Nightwatch and started recruiting."

"Why was Ms Winters there? Can she be trusted about it?"

"I think so, after all we've decided to bring her inside the conspiracy. Anyway, he personally asked her to attend with Psi Corps backing him up, so she did, but she didn't join Nightwatch. Anyway, I got her to look at the pictures of C&C staff and Madisan was the only one she saw at the meeting."

"I see what you mean, it isn't proof by any stretch of the imagination. However, I'm inclined to believe it, and am relieved that we only appear to have one spy in C&C. We'll just have to try and make sure that nothing sensitive happens when she is around, for now."

"Shall I have Garibaldi look into her background and actions, see if he can find something to arrest her for, should we need her out of the way in a hurry?"

"Very sensible. Just make sure he doesn't let anyone know what he is doing or why. We need to pretend not to have noticed or they'll just find someone else to use."

Susan nodded and got up to leave.

***

Talia waited for Susan to come back. She had given up trying to read, and was pacing to and fro. She turned ISN back on, stared at the ship for a while, but then they suddenly stopped running the pictures or referring to them at all. She wondered what was going on – it seemed very odd. Eventually Susan returned.

"Sorry I was gone so long. I had to sort out the paperwork, now that we know Keffer is dead." Talia nodded, and got up to make her tea. Susan came over and put her arms round Talia. They stood there in silence for the moment, before Talia moved to finish making the tea.

"Anyway, I was watching ISN and the footage disappeared. Now they aren't saying anything about it at all!"

"That is very odd, especially as we know the footage is genuine. It suggests that EarthGov is controlling ISN more now. They probably wanted to decide how to react to it before anything further is said, deciding whether to call it a hoax or an enemy – although I'd bet on an enemy."

"I'd bet that they wish it hadn't broken on ISN, unless they did know about it first and just didn't tell anyone."

Susan smiled, "You are getting more cynical."

"You must be rubbing off on me."

"I think that the Captain knows more about this than he is saying, but he wouldn't tell me anything yet."

"So it is probably involved in all that is going on with Delenn and the Vorlons. For some reason the ship seemed kind of familiar to me, but I can't think why. Possibly I just had a nightmare about something like it."

She sat down, curling up next to Susan. Susan reached out a hand and stroked her hair.

"Well, if you remember anything...- but for now, let's try not to think about it."

Talia nodded and leaned in to kiss her.

***

David Corwin was very glad when his shift finished, standing in C&C trying to act as if everything was normal, while images of the strange ship replayed in his mind was not easy. But then again, he didn't think that any of the others were much more calm, especially after Commander Ivanova's announcement of Keffer's death.

David walked quickly away from C&C getting away quickly was the best way not be be caught up there in minor crises, and headed down to Earhart's. A drink seemed like a good idea, hopefully it would allow him to sleep without nightmares of ships like giant spiders killing the all.

He ordered a vodka and juice, then looked around the room. There seemed to be groups of people around all talking, faces much grimmer than usual. He saw Lieutenant Harvey sitting in a corner, drinking heavily, to judge by the number of glasses in front of him. Corwin looked around trying to see if there was anyone with him, but it seemed unlikely. Sighing, he decided that it was his responsibility to find out what was wrong, after all he didn't want to bother the Commander or Captain with it, but it was clear that someone had to talk to him. He picked up his drink and walked over.

"I take it you've heard the news?" He said, sitting down opposite Harvey.

"Yes, sir." The response was quick, and still relatively clear, thankfully. Corwin waited for a moment, trying to think of a way to find out what was wrong. It was something that always felt awkward to him, like he was intruding, but he tried to remember what had been suggested for these sort of situations in his training. Before he could think of what to say Harvey spoke up again,

"Its my fault that he died."

"Why so?" Corwin asked, remembering how guilty he had felt in the past for deaths, and how others had pointed out how he was wrong (or not really wrong, but overly claiming responsibility).

"He came to talk to me about that ship – I'd seen it as well, you see. I gave him the data from my sensors. He must have set up the sensors to notify him of the unusual readings, and so gone after it."

"I see. You probably shouldn't have done that. I believe the Captain ordered him to abandon his search for it. However, you aren't responsible for his being an idiot, and certainly not for those aliens deciding to blow up his Starfury, rather than try to make contact."

Harvey nodded slowly, then said, "I know. I just wish I hadn't given him the data."

"Believe me, I understand that, but I doubt that anyone who has been in Earthforce long won't have similar regrets."

"At least now I know what I saw was real," he said with a wry smile, "Uh, I should go and sleep this off. Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome."

Harvey got up and walked out of Earhart's. David took a swig of his drink and thought over the conversation. It occurred to him that it was important that he told the Captain or Commander Ivanova about the data – being able to detect these new ships could be very useful, especially as they seemed to be hostile. He settled back into his seat, deciding that it wasn't worth moving to join one of the groups of people. He got out his handcomp and started making notes on what Harvey had said, to try to ensure that he didn't forget to mention it. He wondered whether he was missing something – not that it would be that surprising, but he had noticed Commander Ivanova enter C&C and go and talk to the Captain in his office before emerging to announce Keffer's death.

"Mind if I join you?"

He looked up, surprised as he hadn't noticed someone approaching, but Zack Allen was there, holding a drink.

"No, go ahead."

Zack sat down and took a long swig of his drink.

"Did you see the new ship on ISN?" David asked, mostly for something to say, as he didn't know Zack well, certainly not socially.

"Yes, very strange. Makes you wonder what else is out there." He said, sounding morose.

"Something wrong?" David felt that he should ask, although not sure how much more he could cope with at this point.

"Isn’t there always here?" Zack said bitterly. "You didn’t join Nightwatch."

"No." He didn’t say any more, waiting to see where Zack was going with this.

"I did and I didn’t listen to any of the warnings I was given," Zack paused for a moment. "Now Nightwatch have closed down a shop in the Zocalo, just because the storekeeper was complaining about the import regulations." He broke off.

"Have they charged him with anything? I wouldn't have thought that that was a crime."

"Not yet, they are investigating him regarding sedition, but I don't know if they really have the evidence for that. They haven't arrested him, but I don't know what will happen, or whether they are just going to rob him of his livelihood."

David shook his head and looked around, checking no-one seemed to be interested in their conversation.

"This is bad. I mean, things seemed to be going bad already, but this is a sure sign of it."

"What do you mean?"

David looked at him, carefully, "Standard practice is to restrict freedom of speech, especially when the government intends to become less democratic. Its happened many times in history."

Zack looked shocked. "You think that Clark is going not to hold elections any more or something?"

"Probably something first. Get more control over everyone – look at his rhetoric about how Earth comes first."

"And Nightwatch is a part of that. I wish I had never joined."

"You should probably speak to Mr Garibaldi about it."

"I know, but he warned me and I’m not sure that he’ll believe that I’ve repented. He thinks I'm an idiot," Zack glanced around and lowered his voice, "Also, I think he has something going on. I’m not sure who else is in on it, but it seems to include at least the Captain and Commander Ivanova."

David looked up sharply at that, "What do you think? That they are being disloyal?"

"What is loyal? Nightwatch? Spying on each other?"

"I don’t know – we’re always told that we need to follow orders, but there are all these rumours going around about the death of the President, and then suddenly there is Nightwatch; the Ministry for Peace; and treaties with the Centauri." He stopped, glancing around the room, "I don’t know what to think, but I’m not sure that it is safe to talk about, or even think about too much."

"They say that it is all lies about there being anything suspicious about his death."

"The rest is true and that makes a kind of horrible sense. After all if there was nothing to hide why is the Nightwatch looking for secrets?"

"Something my grandmother always used to say is that those who are most determined to find other’s secrets are those with the most to hide."

Zack took a swig of his drink while he thought about that. It did seem to make some sort of sense. "I just don’t know what Garibaldi can do. I don’t think they’ll just let me leave Nightwatch."

"No." David leaned forward, "But maybe he can tell you what to tell them or know what to do."

Zack nodded, "I’ll try to speak to him soon." He sat drinking his beer and they turned the conversation to inconsequential things.

***

The next morning, after the initial rush of business in C&C, Lt Corwin asked Ivanova if he could speak to her in private.

"Certainly, can it wait? We shouldn't both be away at the sane time for long, especially at the moment."

"Yes, I think so, but not too long. I think it might be important."

"Right, when the Captain returns or after the end of our shifts."

Naturally Sheridan chose that moment to enter. "Report?"

"Nothing much going on. Are you busy now?"

"Not especially. Need something?"

"Lieutenant Corwin wants to talk to me about something in private, but I think that for now it wouldn't be good for there to be no one remotely senior here."

"Yes, I'll be around for now. I've plenty of paperwork to catch up on."

She nodded to Corwin and led the way to the conference room, and gestured for him to sit down.

"The footage from Keffer's starfury on ISN yesterday showed that new sort of ship." He hesitated, "You know he was looking for the ship."

"Yes, until the Captain forbade it. He appeared to have stopped, but vanished off from escorting the Narn Cruiser and apparently found it."

"Well, he had some help, in a way." He paused. She wondered why he seemed so nervous, if he knew something useful. "One of the other Starfury pilots saw a ship like that before and got some sensor readings on it – showing unusual levels of neutrino emissions. He gave this information to Keffer to help him in his search."

"Does he still have a copy of the readings?"

"Yes, but a copy was submitted with his report, so it should already be on file. I just thought that it might not get associated with the ship immediately and that it might be useful."

"I'm sure it will be." She smiled. "I don't know whether Earthforce will want to go looking for it, but in any case, it is better to know when something like that is nearby. Well done."

"Thank you."

She noticed that he still sounded nervous. "Anything else?"

He looked down for a moment, seeming to struggle to decide whether to say anything.

"It feels as if something is going badly wrong recently. Nightwatch, the Treaty with the Centauri." He paused, "I know it is politics and it is better not to get involved in politics, but.... I don't know. How can we be loyal to EarthGov if it is changing for the worse?" The last bit came out as a rush, words falling over each other.

"Loyalty is important, but it is important to remember the contents of the oath that we swore on being commissioned: we swore to follow all legal orders given by officers in our chain of command. Remember that it has long been established in law that it is the duty of all officers to consider the legality of orders that they are given."

"That does make it easier. I just hope that I'm not in the position of having to decide not to follow an order, it would be very hard to know what is right."

"Yes, but it should never be easy. After all, there is a reason for most orders, even if the recipient doesn't know it, and most of the time the reason is valid."

He nodded slowly. Ivanova relaxed slightly, it was encouraging to know that she could probably count on him in whatever was to come.

"We had best get back to work, then."

***

David came away from the meeting with Commander Ivanova certain that something was going on – her reply sounded too neat to be off the cuff, even for her. He returned to C&C, glad for the routine of work to distract himself from the thoughts that were circling in his head. Thankfully nothing came up in the rest of the shift that needed much concentration.

After his shift had finished, he walked back to his quarters quickly, not wanting to be caught up in social activities with anyone. He sat down and thought about turning on ISN or other programming, but didn't. He got up and decided to go down to the gym, after all exercise would allow him to think without distractions. He quickly changed, then set out.

At that time of night it was very quiet. He slipped into a corner and picked a good pace on the treadmill. Once he had got into a rhythm he started to think back over the conversation with Commander Ivanova. It struck him that she had probably been thinking along the same lines, but probably got further along with it. He wondered what information she had. Was she anticipating having to act against Earthgov or that others in the military would?

The non-aggression treaty with the Centauri seemed to indicate the possibility; after all would Earthforce really stand by and watch the Centauri enslave the non-aligned worlds after they had fought so hard against the Dilgar doing so? Well, they seemed to have abandoned the Narn, who had helped Earth against the Minbari. He swore mentally. It seemed that he was going to have to decide – after all in these situations just going along with the chain of command was a good way to get court martialed, not to mention a way to end up on the wrong side. But did he think that Ivanova was likely to be wrong – his heart told him that she was too be trusted, but he must make his own deicision as he would be the one who would have to live or die by it.

He added speed to the machine and ran against it, trying to run hard enough to escape from his thoughts. He ran until his was out of breath and then stopped. Leaving the gym, he wandered back slowly through the station, going through the Zocalo and other social areas, watching the crowds. He noticed Zack Allen sitting in a bar looking glum. He entered and ordered a drink, then went to sit beside him.

"Something wrong?"

He glanced up from his drink, "Well, as usual. Nightwatch. I tried to talk to Garibaldi but he is very annoyed at me about joining in the first place, and so he didn't seem to want to listen to me."

"Would you like me to try to speak to the Captain or Commander Ivanova for you?"

"No, better to leave it for now. I guess I just have to stand by my mistakes."

"Well, so long as you don't sign up to their ideology, you could probably be useful, if you want to be. If you tell me what is going on, I'll make sure that people who need to know do."

"So spy on Nightwatch?"

"Yes," David didn't say more, knowing how much of a risk he was already taking here, if Zack chose to report this he would be arrested for certain.

"I guess that makes sense. Will you speak up for me when it comes to a head?"

"Yes." David took a sip of his drink in relief.


	4. Chapter 4

Sitting in the the main conference room, Ivanova watched Mr Endawi explain that he had come to Babylon 5 in search of information about the new ship, but most of her attention was on Sheridan and Delenn, trying to work out their reactions. She suspected that this was related to all the other secrets, but couldn't tell exactly what was going on.

She wondered if Mr Endawi was going to try and talk to more Earthforce personnel, and whether he realised that the station had a resident telepath – it would make sense for him to ask for Talia's help with this, but it could be very bad if that happened, because it seemed that Sheridan and Delenn didn't want to share any information with him.

As she escorted Mr Endawi to his quarters, she wondered at how close Sheridan and Delenn seemed to be becoming – it seemed like she was being left out of the loop a lot, although Sheridan claimed to trust her.

***

Later that day she recieved a message on the link that the Captain wanted to see her as soon as possible.

"Captain, you wanted to see me." Ivanova said, entering the conference room.

"Yes, Commander. This is going to be difficult. Umm, I haven't had a chance to fill you in on everything until now and I apologize for that. But from what I've just heard we don't have a lot of time. This is Marcus, he is a..."

She interrupted, quickly, realising that if there wasn't much time it was better to let on how much she had already found out, "A Ranger. They've been trained to fight the Shadows and keep an eye on what's happening outside Babylon 5. The Rangers in this sector are under the direct control of you, Ambassador Delenn and Garibaldi is functioning as your liaison. Did I leave anything out?"

"When did you? How did you?" He sounded totally shocked, she tried hard not to laugh, as she looked at all their faces. Delenn and Lennier seemed as shocked as he was, but Marcus seemed more impressed – if she was reading that right. Garibaldi just seemed to be amused, but then he was used to her. She tried to hide her amusement at Sheridan's reaction, but it felt good to get one over him for once, and to know what she wasn't being kept out of the loop for any particular reason.

"Captain, the day something happens around here and I don't know about it, worry. So, what's up?"

"Marcus," Sheridan gestured for him to speak.

"I came here from Zargros 7. Its a Drazi colony on the edge of their territory. Its also the base for one of our biggest training camps."

"I thought the Rangers were being trained on Minbar," Garibaldi said.

"Many of them are, yes. But there is a wisdom in, as you say, not putting all your eggs in one basket. Besides, not all of our people are comfortable with the idea of Rangers, so with the cooperation of other governments, we've created additional training camps elsewhere," Lennier explained. Susan was surprised to notice the way that he had picked up on the proverb. He seemed to have learnt a lot in the time he had been on Babylon 5.

"Two weeks ago we were surrounded by Centauri blockage mines. Any ship trying to leave the blockage is shot down. It's a small colony with very little of value, so our guess is that we are the target," Marcus continued.

"Why hasn't the Drazi government done anything about this?" Ivanova asked

"The Centauri have captured much larger targets on the other side of their territory. The do not have the resources to protect a colony with so few people and such limited strategic value," said Delenn.

"We're boxed in on all sides. We need your help, now, before anyone else is killed or the camp is invaded. All you have to do is break the blockade long enough for the other Rangers to escape."

"Look, to lead an expedition into Drazi space and take out a planetary blockade you'd need a warship, major ordinance, a crew. We don't have those kind of resources and we're already in hot water with the Centauri over the last fire fight." Garibaldi was right, as usual, but Susan wondered how they could not do anything, and indeed why Delenn would be asking them when she would likely have an easier time finding the resources for it.

"We have the means if you have the will. There'll be nothing left behind that can be linked back to you. We have no one else to turn to," Marcus said, but Susan wondered at what he could mean – if they had the means, why did they need help?

"Captain, there's one more thing, we still have a VIP on board. You leave now, it's going to raise ten kinds of hell." Ivanova thought she should remind him, although she suspected it wouldn't change anything.

"When I agreed to share command of the Rangers with Delenn I became responsible for their well being. I'm not going to abandon them now. Michael, I'm leaving you in charge of Mr Endawi-"

Ivanova interrupted, "With respect, Captain, that doesn't make a lot of sense. I should stay and keep an eye on him – we can't risk him becoming suspicious and he expects to be dealing with you or me. Also, you should take Talia, Ms Winters, with you – we can't risk him asking her to scan us if he suspects anything. I'll tell her."

Sheridan hesitated, then said, "I suppose that makes sense. Susan, you are in charge here. Michael, you had better stay as well. It would be too suspicious for both of us to be missing."

"I'll tell him you went on a reconnaissance mission to keep up your flight hours, or something, if necessary," Susan said as she left to find Talia.

She tried to remember what Talia's schedule for the day was, if she was lucky, Talia would have just finished the last of her morning meetings. Susan hurried down to the area used for such meetings. Indeed Talia was there, seemingly exchanging parting pleasantries with her client. After a minute, she finished and walked towards Susan. She led the way into a nearby turbolift which was thankfully empty. As soon as the doors as closed, she said,

"Talia, there is an Earthforce intelligence division representative here, a Mr Endawi. He’s looking into whether anything is known about the ship that was seen on ISN."

"And so we aren’t telling him?"

"Yes, it seems that Sheridan and Delenn don’t want him to know what we do, and perhaps it is for the best."

Talia knew she was thinking about the changes that had been happening in EarthGov.

"Anyway, he hasn’t asked for you, but we’re going to get you off the station for now, I’m sure you can think of a valid reason for your absence later. Report to shuttle bay three at once. I can't tell you where you'll be going for now, but trust me."

"Because if I’m not here I can’t be asked to scan any of you, or have to try to conceal any information I find."

"Exactly."

Talia headed down to the shuttle bay. She entered, and looked around confused, as for some reason she had been expecting Garibaldi, but there were Delenn, Captain Sheridan, another Minbari, who Talia recognised as Delenn's aide, although she couldn't recall his name, and a stranger.

"I was told to come here?"

"Yes. I’ll explain what is going on when we’re on our way." Captain Sheridan said.

Talia nodded and followed Sheridan into the shuttle.

"Marcus, are you qualified on these?" Sheridan asked.

"Unofficially, yes."

Sheridan gestured him to the co-pilot seat and Talia sat behind them.

"I'll just send a fake destination to station files." Sheridan "Shuttle one to Minbari flyer, stay close. Initiating jump game sequence."

The shuttle went through the jump gate. After they were clear into hyperspace, Captain Sheridan turned to her,

"Ms Winters, sorry for the secrecy. I don't know how much Commander Ivanova told you – about this in particular or everything that is going on in general although you seem to be getting along well. I know Mr Garibaldi has explained some of it to you. They both say that we can trust you, so I'm going to tell you more. We should have enough time?"

"Thank you."

Marcus nodded, presumably in answer to the question about the time.

She listened as he explained about the Rangers, and some of the other things, but less that Susan had told her. She looked across at Marcus. He smiled at her and said, "I know it must all be hard to take in."

She nodded, thinking it would have been much harder if she hadn't known already. "So it is dangerous where we are going?" She asked.

"Yes, but not too dangerous. The Centauri are good fighters, but they can't match the ship we will being going in."

"Oh? Tell me about it." Captain Sheridan put in sharply. Talia realised that he was in the dark about with and was not enjoying it.

"I should leave that for Delenn. I don't think she'd like me to steal her thunder."

"Maybe I should ask her, then." Captain Sheridan reached towards the controls, presumable to activate communications, but drew it back without doing anything.

Marcus smiled at that but did not reply.

Following that they flew in silence until Delenn came on the comm from her flyer, "We are approaching the rendezvous point. Prepare for return to normal space."

"Confirmed," Sheridan replied over the comm, then turning it off, asked Marcus, "So there is a ship waiting for us there? What sort, a Minbari cruiser?"

The jump gate opened in front of them. Marcus didn't answer, but smiled slightly. Talia felt that he was enjoying knowing more than the Captain. The shuttle passed through it. Talia looked around, but couldn't see anything to start with.

"My God. Its beautiful." Captain Sheridan's voice seemed full of awe.

"Her name is the White Star and she's yours, Captain."

Talia looked at the ship, and thought that it looked like nothing she had seen before, but then she didn't really know a lot about spaceships, but it didn't look like the Minbari ships that she remembered seeing on every news bulletin as a child.

Captain Sheridan brought the shuttle to dock with the ship. They disembarked from it and Delenn lead Sheridan through the ship. Talia followed them, with Marcus and Lennier at the back. Talia could hear Sheridan and Delenn talking about the specifics of the ship, but didn’t really listen, as she was too busy looking around in wonder. It seemed so different from all the ships that she has seen before. She could feel the ship mentally, and wondered if it is sentient, as there is a feeling of a mind, but it is not something that she could touch easily. Marcus touched her arm and asked,

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, just it is so-" She stopped, unable to find a word for it.

"Have you been on a Minbari ship before?"

"No, nor a Vorlon one, although apparently someone who has said it sang to him." She looked around, wondering more.

He looked surprised at that, but before he had time to speak, they entered the control room, the doors opening to display it to their sight. Talia looked around, noticing that there were several Minbari scattered around the room, each apparently at controls for some aspect of the ship.

"As we've had some problems recently with the Warrior Caste, we've chosen a crew from the Religious Caste. Many have helped to design this ship, working in secret. Even some in the Grey Council don't know about it," said Delenn

Talia wondered at this and made a mental note to ask Alisa about it the next time they talked, after all she might well know something, and Talia was wondered if relying on Delenn for their information would lead to it being incomplete. If there was a war coming, surely it would be important to get the Warrior Caste on board.

"Its amazing, Delenn, I could spend the next couple of days taking this thing apart to find out how it works, but we don't have time for that right now. Who do I..?"

"The others are not yet familiar with your language, but I will be happy to relay your orders to the crew."

"Thank you, Mr Lennier."

"Put us on course for Zagros 7."

Lennier relayed the order and the ship moved off, opening a jump point and entering hyperspace. Talia remained standing at the back near the door, trying to keep out of the way of the others, she felt out of place, after all this was a military ship, on a military purpose. She looked around, and located a corner where it did not look like she would be in the way and sat down on the floor.

***

Ivanova was in C&C overseeing the routine traffic in and out of Bablon 5, when Mr Endawi entered.

"Commander Ivanova, I have now spoken to all of the Ambassadors here. I should look over the information and check if there is anything to confirm before I leave."

"Have you considered speaking to G'Kar?"

"No, our treaty with the Centauri says all official contact must be cleared." He hesitated before he answered and she wondered if he was lying.

"Well, you could ask Ambassador Molari, or you could talk to him unofficially. I don't know if he would know anything, but it would seem that otherwise your report would hardly be complete."

"That is a possibility." He turned away and left C&C

She relaxed slightly, glad that he had not asked to speak with the Captain.

***

Talia was deep in thought about Susan and how she could convince her to be less fearful of telepathy, when Lennier spoke,

"Approaching Zagros 7, coming out of hyperspace."

"Are the other Rangers ready?"

"I sent them a message as soon as we came aboard," Marcus said.

"Marcus, you know the weapons systems?"

"Yes."

"Very well, you take weapon systems. Keep scanning. There's bound to be a Centauri warship hanging around to keep watch. Let's go." Sheridan seemed calm and in complete contol.

Marcus moved over to one of the central consoles, and one of the Minbari moved to the station he had been at, presumably communications.

"Fire," Captain Sheridan ordered.

Talia felt the ship fire, but couldn't see the impact from where she was sitting.

"Still no sign of a Centauri warship?"

"None," Lennier replied quickly. Talia assumed that he was in charge of the sensors.

"I don't like it. They wouldn't just abandon a blockage like this."

"Unless they recalled it?" Delenn said slowly seemingly unsure.

"And leave all this behind unprotected. Are you sure the sensors are working properly?"

Talia noticed how, now they were clearly in a military situation Sheridan seemed to have no issue with taking command of the ship.

"Would you like to see for yourself?" Lennier asked, activating a holographic display which appeared high on the top of the room, showing all of the area of space surrounding them in detail. Talia wondered at it as seemed like nothing she has ever seen. Sheridan and Delenn walked down towards it.

"This is... This is. Delenn, what else can this ship do?"

Talia noticed that he seemed to be surprised by it as well, at least it make her feel less out of her depth.

"All in good time, all in good time." She sounded smug to Talia.

Talia felt something crawling in the edges of her mind, like a spider crawling up her spine, then a noise in her head, like a scream. She clutched at her head.

"We're picking up disturbance on the scanner – one unknown ship."

"Show me."

"Shadows! In Valen's Name!" Delenn sounded scared.

Her fright was hitting Talia's mind, but Talia struggled to calm herself. It is hardly possible to even block out the emotions of the others around her, let alone the strange scream from the ship. All of the other were looking looked at the ship on the display. Talia shivered, remembering the fate of Keffer's Starfury, but tried to believe that this ship would not be so outmatched. She struggled to focus on the room around her, but it seemed as it the scream was overwhelming her mind – she couldn't see anything, not as if it was dark, but everything blurred away from her, as if she was cut off in her own mind. She could vaguely hear the voices around her, but as if everyone was a few rooms away, but shouting – vaguely but distorted, like echoes of a light contact with their minds.

"They've got to be here for the same reasons were are: the Rangers."

"You can't abandon them down there." Marcus

"I have no intention of abandoning anyone. How many more of these mines do we have to take out before the Rangers can escape?"

"We're not ready for this yet." Delenn sounded very afraid, and Talia could feel her fear increase even though her shields.

"Then we'd better get ready. We came this far, we're gonna finish what we started. Continue attack."

Lennier and Marcus and the Minbari crew seemed to be following theat order – working quickly. Talia felt as if the ship was slipping away, the screaming of the Shadow ship was overwhelming her mind. She could hear the voice of those around, seeming to echo through her mind mixing with the scream.

"Enemy vessel targeting us."

"Evasive action – keep firing."

"They missed. They never miss." Delenn

"They don't recognise our ship. They want to find out who we are before they destroy us. They'll either cripple us so they can board us, or drive us off so they can follow us. That should give us just enough room to manoeuvre."

"Last mine cleared – sending message to the Rangers."

"Head for the jump game."

"Would it not be faster to open a jump point?" Lennier asked

"I don't want them to know we have that kind of potential. Now hit it!"

"We cannot lose them in hyperspace! They will follow us wherever we go." Delenn

As the Shadow ship gets nearer, the scream totally overwhelms her. Talia couldn’t bear the noise any longer. She focused on it and tried to mentally block out specifically. The Shadow ship froze for a moment,

"What has happened to it? Why has it stopped moving?" Marcus

Talia realised that it is her that has done it, in her shock she lets go as they go through the jump gate. The ship followed them into hyperspace, seeming to be chasing even harder than before. Talia felt it reaching for something and blocked that sharply, uncertain of what is going on, but sure that they don't want it to do anything else.

"Its still with us."

"Good."

"Listen, Captain. You don't know what you are dealing with. Our weapons aren't strong enough to hurt a Shadow vessel that size. We must find help. We cannot hope to destroy a ship like that alone." Delenn

"With all due respect, Ambassador, I've heard that before."

"Enemy closing. Do you have a plan?"

"Have you ever wondered what would happen if you opened a jump point inside a jump gate?"

"No, although I cannot imagine that it would be good for anyone caught it the surrounding area."

"Earthforce experimented with it in the war, called it the Bonehead Manoeuvre."

Lennier looked across at that, Talia vaguely noticed the insensitivity of what Sheridan had said.

"The main problem was that none of the ships was fast enough to get out of range of the blast wave. Mr Lennier, what do you think? Is this ship fast enough to get out before the gate blows?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, that'll do. We should just about be to Sector 45 by now. Tell them to head to the local jump gate, best speed."

"Captain, why this jump gate?" Delenn

"It's expendable. Used to be the Markab system, but since they died off other races have been using the gate to strip the system bare. I do not like grave robbers. This should take care of two problems at once."

"Approaching jump gate."

"Marcus, ride the jump engines. Activate jump gate sequence on my mark."

Seconds passed, the longest seconds Talia felt of her life, and possibly the last. She shivers and notices how cold she felt.

"Now."

The ship comes out of the Markeb gate.

"Aft jump engines online now. Punch it. Hang on." The ship sways and electricity jumps from place to place. Talia held on to the edge of a console as tightly as she could. Eventually, the ship stops shaking. Talia felt the Shadow ship scream in pain, overwhelming her, as it is destroyed, she swallowed trying not to be sick. It hurt her mind in a way that not even a deep scan ever has. She could hardly hear the voices of the others, while she struggled to recover.

"Everyone all right?"

"Fine. Lennier, Lennier."

"I was just thinking in all my years of temple nothing prepared me for this sort of experience. Perhaps when this is all over I will submit a proposal to revise the program. I think that would be a very good idea."

"What happened when that ship froze?" Sheridan asked, looking around.

"I’m not sure." Talia said, shakily, "I felt it in my mind. It was horrible – like the scream of something dieing, but continuing and getting louder as it got nearer. I tried to block it out, and the ship froze, for a moment, but as soon as I wasn’t focusing on it it started moving again. Then it seemed to be reaching out to something - not us - but something else, and I stopped it, I’m not sure why or how." Talia stopped, feeling how much her voice was shaking and feeling that she was rambling, or about to cry.

"It was probably trying to send a message or scan us." Marcus said, smiling at her.

"I wonder if when the ship was frozen its defence systems were still active." Sheridan said. "It seems like you might be a weapon against it."

Talia nodded, trying to swallow the sick feeling in her stomach. She wasn’t a soldier and knowing that the ship had just died was bad enough without it being her that did it. She tried to block out the satisfaction that the others were feeling, hoping that her doubts did not show on her face. "I don’t know how effective it will be, because it seemed to require a lot of concentration to block it even for a few seconds. You’ll probably need more or stronger telepaths." Talia’s thoughts immediately turned to Alisa and Lyta, although Lyta was a P5 like her.

"I’ll think about it."

As Sheridan turned away and asked a question of Delenn, Talia retreated from the bridge. She sat down on the floor in the corridor, bent her knees up in front of her and hugged them. She tried to calm her breathing, trying not to remember the feeling of the Shadow ship screaming in her mind. It was so cold and frightening, but more terrifying was the fact that the others were hoping that she would volunteer to try the same again in the future. She wished Susan was there for her to talk to.

"Ms Winters, are all right?"

She looked up at Marcus startled, as she hadn't noticed him approaching, and shrugged. He sat down opposite her.

"I know it must be hard for you. You aren't trained as a fighter."

Talia could feel his sympathy and it calmed and warmed her "You don't know what it feels like to have that inside your head."

"No, I don't. However, I do know why we need your help." He paused, but then went on, "My colony was destroyed by the Shadows. I wasn't there at the time, but they destroyed it all – killed everyone."

"Which colony?" Talia wondered why she hadn't heard of the destruction.

"Arissa." He seemed to notice her confusion, "It was a small mining colony, so Earthgov managed to cover up its destruction. They wanted everyone to believe that it was an accident. I know it wasn't. My brother warned me about the Shadows, but I wouldn't listen. He was killed there, trying to save anyone."

"I'm sorry." Talia said and shivered, wondering what it would be like to carry that guilt, "Was that why you became a Ranger?"

"Yes, to fight them, as he had done. I know it is hard for you to think about, but it seems that what you can do, freezing the ships, may be our only way of beating them. You can see how powerful their ships are, none of us, except perhaps the Vorlons could hope to take them on in a fair fight – their technology is centuries ahead of even the Minbari."

She nodded, "I've been thinking about it. I hate the idea, but I know that I must help. Do you think they are responsible for the Centauri wining their war so quickly?"

"Yes. There is evidence that some of the battles did not involve Centauri warships, but we haven't found any survivors to confirm it."

Talia looked away, struggling. "I'll try to help, but we will need more telepaths for it to be viable. I don't think I could control more than one ship at a time or in quick succession."

He nodded.

They sat there in silence for a while.

***

Later that day, Ivanova was in C&C overseeing the flow of traffic and waiting for the return of the others. It seemed that they should be back, but her calculations based on her guesses about the capacities of the ship that they were to be using.

The door opened, she glanced over to see who was entering, it was Mr Endawi accompanied by Garibaldi.

"Commander Ivanova."

"Mr Endawi," She said, politely turning to face him, aware that she couldn't throw him out of C&C and hoping that nothing untoward happened while he was here.

"Is the Captain available?"

"No, he is away getting in some flight hours and checking out a distress signal. However, if there is anything you need, I am available."

"Thank you. I have everything I came for. I'll turn this over to the SID for analysis. I'll make sure Captain Sheridan gets a copy of my report."

Susan nodded, although she suspected that it would not happen – it was unlike EarthGov to share information that they might get an advantage from keeping secret.

"Would you like me to see you to your ship?"

"Thank you."

Susan glanced over at Corwin. "Lieutenant Corwin, you are in charge here."

"Yes, sir." He said, moving to take her place at the front of the window.

She turned and followed Mr Endawi to the departure lounge.

***

Following their return to Babylon 5, Captain Sheridan summoned everyone to meet in the conference room. As she entered Talia looked around, she thought she was the last to arrive. Delenn, Lennier, Captain Sheridan, Susan, Garibaldi, Doctor Franklin and Marcus were sitting around the conference table. Sheridan gestured for her to sit down, then began speaking.

"Although some of us, like Susan here, make a point of it to watch everything that happens on Babylon 5, most of the rest don't have that option. Now, up until now Delenn and I, and maybe Garibaldi here have had all the pieces to what is going on out there. The return of the Shadows, the Rangers, the loss of my wife at Za'Ha'Dum. The first thing I learnt at the academy: the lack of information can kill you. We can't afford that. So I'm creating a war council. We'll meet every two weeks for now, unless something urgent comes up. The War Council will consist of each of us, whichever Ranger is stationed here at the time and a few others that I hope to add later. Whatever knowledge or information any of us has will be shared with the rest. There are no ground rules. Anyone can say anything he or she wants to say. However, the first thing to discuss is what occurred with the Shadow ship and Talia." Sheridan paused and looked at her.

Talia licked her lips slightly, then said, "It felt like the ship was screaming in my mind. It was horrible." She shivered at the memory and did not try to describe the sound to the others, "I tried to block the sound out of my mind and the ship froze. I was shocked and let the shield go. It started moving again."

"You are certain that you blocked it?" Garibaldi asked, Talia could feel his scepticism.

"No."

"It would seem the most likely. There would be no reason for it to freeze like that of its own accord." Marcus said.

"Later, it seemed to be trying to do something else, but wasn't near enough for the screaming to be unbearable, but I blocked that. Marcus thought that it was sending a message." Talia stopped and waited for the others to think about that.

"So, as far as we are aware, we have a weapon against them, but they don't know it. The first thing must be to recruit more telepaths. Talia, do you think you can train them for this?"

"I can try, but I don't know exactly how I did it or what level of skill and ability it will require."

"Well, we don't have anything to find that out, so I suppose it will have to be tried when we discover the location of more ships."

Talia nodded, there was something nagging at her mind about this, but she couldn't work out what it was.

"Steven, can you contact the telepaths that you helped escape when you were running the underground railroad through here? Delenn, you try to get some Minbari telepaths on board? If this works we will need at least one per ship."

"Yes." Delenn sounded pleased by this.

"Yes, but I don't know how many of them will be willing to help us, especially without anything being offered to them," Dr Franklin replied slowly.

"Will the fact that their lives will be at risk otherwise not motivate them?" Delenn asked.

Talia tried not to smile, thinking of Alisa's descriptions on Religious Caste Minbari and the assumptions this question showed.

"No. Most people require more than that, at least payment of some kind, especially as there isn't a danger that they can see at the moment," Marcus answered.

"Well, for now see how many you can recruit on promises: to keep them safe from Psi Corps; feed and house them; and afterwards we can see about payment," Captain Sheridan replied bruskly.

"There will be some doubt as to whether we can protect them from Psi Corps – or indeed why we would." Talia pointed out, trying to find the words to express the amount of distrust that she had felt in the minds of the rogue telepaths.

"For now, it will have to do."

"Also, we have the sensor readings from when one of Delta wing encountered the Shadow ship. We should be able to use this to allow the sensors to identify Shadow ships, but I don't know at what range," Susan spoke up, Talia wondered if she was deliberately changing the subject to avoid the argument that might happen.

"Well, we'll have to try and work that out. See if you can get it fitted to the White Star, then it is another thing to try and test."

"Anyway, I know I don't get out of Medlab much, but what are these Shadows?"

Talia stopped listening as Delenn started explaining the background of the Shadows; she knew that Susan would fill her in if there was anything she needed to know, but for now she wondered how she would go about recruiting other telepaths.

***

That evening Talia and Susan were eating dinner in Susan's quarters. Susan seemed quieter than usual, Talia wondered about it, but wasn't surprised; it has been a momentous day, if only they could work out how to go forward from it. After they had finished eating, Susan got up and started making tea. After a minute, she turned back to Talia.

"When you sent the password to my mind, you found out that I was a latent telepath." Susan swallowed before continuing, Talia's mind jumped to where she thought this was going, and she felt a mixture of apprehension and delight. "Do you think that you might be able to train me to be able to help in this?"

"Possible," Talia said, "I can try, but I really don't know."

Susan finished making the tea and came to sit down next to her, putting their tea on the table.

"I can try and show you what I did, but I don't really understand it how it worked. It may well be that you don't have the power for it. I expect that you would be a P1 if trained." Talia deliberately didn't finish the sentence – otherwise you wouldn't have been able to hide it so easily.

"Yes. Although I wonder if a few lower power telepaths could have the same effect as a stronger one."

"Possible, but it might require working together closely." Talia looked at Susan wanting to see her work that out.

"You mean linked together mentally. Is that possible?"

"I think so, Psi Corps doesn't do it, but in my reading about Narn telepaths I found out that they used to-" Talia stopped suddenly realising what she had been reaching for earlier. "Susan – the Narn. They know about this! It was in the book of G'Quan. I read it, but forgot about it with everything that is going on."

Talia got up and paced about the room.

"I need to check the details, but I think there is a lot there. I remember now that there was a picture of one of the Shadow ships and something about G'Quan and the Mindwalkers driving them away."

"You should check before the next meeting – hopefully it will have more information that will help you to find out what is needed."

Talia nodded. "But for now." She sat back down, next to Susan. "Try to relax. You know you have nothing to fear from me."

Susan nodded slowly, Talia could feel her fear and resistances growing stronger as she unshielded herself. Talia slowly reached out with her hand to take Susan's. She remained shielded but the contact allowed a light contact between their minds. Susan gasped, but Talia could feel her moving to control the link. Talia relaxed slowly, allowing Susan the control.

"Go on," she said mentally, "Try and look at my memories of anything you want."

Susan chose to look back at their first proper meeting, Talia watched her watching and feeling her memory of the event – feeling her resentment at being called a victim.

"Changed you mind now?" Susan asked.

"Of course," Talia replied.

Susan let go of her hand and moved away, breaking the connection.

"Enough for now," she said out loud and picked up her tea and took a sip.

Talia nodded and waited, not waiting to push anything and lose the progress threat they had made.

After a few minutes Susan said, "Well, that worked. Do you think you will be able to teach me?"

"Possibly. I'll try, but I'd rather test the training with someone stronger, when they find another Shadow ship."

"Alisa."

Talia nodded, wondering if Susan had picked the thought out of her mind. "I intend to comm her tomorrow to ask."

It was in fact a few days before Talia had time and she waited until it was mid evening local time to comm Alisa. She paced around the room, waiting for the connection – trying to think of how to explain what was going on, and wondering if she was right to involve Alisa. Eventually the connection went through and Alisa's image appeared on the screen.

"Talia, are you all right?"

"Possibly – I don't really know." Talia looked away from the screen, seeing Alisa looking so happy on Minbar, she couldn't spoil it for her. "Things have been going at bit crazy around here – you know how it is!"

"But you're safe? And Susan?"

"Yes."

Alisa smiled at her for a moment, then said, "Are you going to tell me how you two are getting on?"

Talia blinked, surprised, she hadn't realised Alisa knew anything. "Did she tell you? I thought we were keeping it a secret for now."

"No," Alisa said smirking.

Talia realised she had been trapped into confirming what must only have been suspicions.

"Yes, we are in some sort of relationship, but I don't really know where it is going or anything, especially with my being a telepath – Psi Corps wouldn't approve."

Alisa nodded, looking more serious now, "But good. Just try not to let them find out about that as well."

Talia nodded, then asked, "And how is your training going? Do you feel like you are making progress?"

"Yes, but there is still a lot for me to learn here and I have a lot of work to do."

Talia hesitated, she should tell Alisa what was going on, but couldn't face it.

"Well, I won't keep you from it. Any chance of your coming to visit soon?"

"I'd like to. We'll see if I'm allowed to."

***

Alisa wondered what was wrong after Talia had signed off – she was sure that there had been more of a reason than just to check that she was all right. She was wondering how to try and find out, when one of the Ranger trainees knocked on the open door. She looked up, but didn't recognise him – even after a year she still found it hard to tell Minbari apart before she got to know them well.

"You are summoned to Ambassador Sinclair’s office – at once."

"Thank you." She quickly tidied herself up and went over there – wondering why she had been summoned.

The door was closed, and for once there was no one in the outer office. She knocked and waited for a reply.

"Come in."

She entered and saw Sinclair standing by the window talking to a man who she didn't know.

"Alisa, come and sit down." He gestured to a seat in front of the desk and came and sat behind it. The other man sat down in the other chair in front of the desk. "Marcus, here, is just back from Babylon 5, with some news that you should hear."

"Recently the Ranger base on Zagros 7 was attacked by the Centauri. A White Star was sent from Babylon 5 to break the blockage. One of those who went along was Talia Winters. A Shadow ship was there and she somehow manage to mostly disable it."

"So that is what is bothering her, and you are telling me because you want her to train me to do it, if possible?"

"Yes. Listen, Alisa, if you do this, you will be in more danger than is normal for Rangers," Sinclair said, looking hard at her.

"If the Shadows know, or work out, what we are doing picking off the telepaths would make sense."

"Yes." Sinclair hesitated.

"Look, I won't say that I'm not scared, but I'll do it," Alisa said quickly; she knew Talia hadn't told her to protect her from this, but was determined not to be left out if she could help.

"Its your choice. You leave immediately for Babylon 5 with Marcus. He'll explain more about the current situation on the way. However, before you leave I should give you this." He held out the Isil'Zha broach to her. "It is irregular, but I expect that is the way things are going to be from here on in. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir." Alisa took it and fastened it to the shoulder of her blouse, then got up and went to the door.

"We leave hear in twenty minutes to catch the next ship out. Don't be late, and don't tell anyone what is going on. Pack lightly. I'll arrange documents for you."

Alisa turned back at that, wondering why, but then realised that it was cruel to suggest it to people until they knew whether it was a fluke. She swallowed as the thought of how much would rest on her – if she couldn't learn what Talia had done, if she couldn't repeat it, there would go their only hope. She doubted they would try another test with all the loss that it would entail.

Alisa quickly packed some clothes and toiletries into a small bag, trying to think of what she was likely to need. She glanced around the room, knowing that everything would be packed up for her until she returned, and the room given to other trainees. She swallowed her tears at losing the first home she had had in years. Then she quickly grabbed a couple of small keepsakes to put into her bag, and grabbed her handcomp. She picked up the bag and hurried towards the flyer station. The nearest flyer was already powering up, so she started running towards it. As she got there, she glanced in and saw Marcus in the pilot's seat. She quickly climbed in, stowing her bag carefully, before belting herself into her seat.

"Ready?" he asked, looking across at her.

"Yes."

He set thy flyer into motion. "We are tight on time, despite the fact that you were early. You have everything you need?"

"Yes." Alisa tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice – just because it was her first mission didn't mean that he had to treat her like a child. She turned away and determinedly looked out of the window at the countryside passing beneath them.

"Here are identity documents for you – Clare Jones, returning to Mars after a cultural visit here. I hope you know enough to pull it off if needed."

"How am I supposed to know you?"

"Friend of your father – he asked me to accompany you on the way back."

"My father's name?"

He hesistated.

"Daniel," she said. "You need to rememeber it in case we are asked." She looked at the documents, learning her new details.

After they had transferred to the liner, he showed her to the small cabin that they would share for the duration of the voyage.

"Would you prefer the upper or lower berth?"

"Upper," she said, and climbed up and put her bag away into the locker.

"Did you have dinner before we left?"

"No." She considered pointing out what time meals were normally served, but reminded herself that she should be polite as she was going have to put up with him for at least the length of the voyage, if not longer.

"Right, I'll take you to get food from the canteen."

"I'm perfectly capable of getting food myself." She replied, thinking that even if it was rude, she needed him to realise that she was capable of looking after herself.

"Well, it can be dangerous to be out on your own, especially when you are young and female."

"I lived in Downbelow of Babylon 5 for two years on my own after my parents died. I know the dangers and I know how to survive them."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know your background."

"Should that really matter? I'm a Ranger now, you can't protect me from danger – I chose to walk into it with open eyes."

He nodded slowly. "My parents and most of the people I knew died on Arissa colony in the Shadow attack, partly because I didn't listen to my brother's warning about the attack." He paused and looked away from her, but she didn't speak knowing that he had more to say, "I joined the Rangers to save people and make amends for that."

"I'm sorry – and I'm sorry that I misjudged you. Since I came to Minbar there have been so many people trying to protect me and look after me, I've got rather sensitive about it. After all, even if I hadn't had my experience, do most fourteen year olds really need to be checked on at least once an hour in the day and a few times in the night! I didn't think I gave them any particular cause for concern."

"How did you end up on Minbar?"

"Well, my father went to Babylon 5 looking for work; then died. After I had been there a while I was caught stealing and the resident telepath discovered that I was a telepath, but other people allowed me to have a choice instead of packing me off to Psi Corps. Anyway, the choices they found for me were to come to Minbar or to go to the Narn homeworld – they were very eager to recruit me." She paused, remembering the events, but determined to keep all the secrets she had discovered.

"The resident telepath, was that Talia Winters?"

"Yes. Do you know her?"

"I met here on my visit to Babylon 5, as I said in the explanation you were given. She seems to have broken with the Psi Corps by now – so you will have nothing to fear from her."

"I know that. I've talked to her on Stellercom several times since coming to train as a Ranger."

"That's interesting – she never said anything about knowing any Rangers before."

"Well, I didn't tell her – it was supposed to be a secret – Ambassador Sinclair thought it was better not to tell anyone."

He nodded, then said as he got up, "So she is going to be surprised when you turn up for her to train."

Alisa jumped down from the top bunk and followed him out of the door.

"As I was to hear that she was involved. She'll have to get over it – hopefully she will realise that I can look after myself." Alisa thought about saying more, but decided that any of the further questions she had had better wait for a private place. "So what news is there from Babylon 5?"

"Well, I wasn't there long..."

After they had eaten and returned to their cabin, Alisa lay on her bunk, thinking. She hung her head over the edge to look down at Marcus.

"I was wondering what was said about recruiting more telepaths, how were they planning to go about it?"

He looked up surprised, "Well, there was a decision to wait until they had checked if it would work, or at least if Talia thought that it would, to aggressively recruit. But there are several other telepaths in the Rangers, and many telepaths among the Religious Caste of the Minbari, with whom Delenn is using her influence to try and bring them on board, and it seems that Dr Franklin knows how to contact some human telepaths who escaped Psi Corps."

Alisa nodded. "What about telepaths among the Warrior Caste? They are less likely to be concerned about using their skills for fighting?"

"Sinclair may be trying to make contact with the Warrior Caste, but I don't know. However it is not like there is anything we can do to help with that."

"Well, there might not be anything you can do, but I know Terenn, who is the telepath stationed on the Ingata."

"Wait. How?" He looked flabbergast. Alisa felt mild triumph at managing to surprise him.

"Delenn arranged for me to travel to Minbar on the Ingata because she was concerned at me travelling on my own. Anyway, Alyt Neroon put me in the charge of Terenn as he wanted to be sure that I wasn't spying on him or his crew for Delenn. Anyway, he was very friendly and told me a lot about what Warrior Caste telepaths do – far more than I was told during the time I spent with the Religious Caste."

"It is possible that the Religious Caste doesn't know, or don't think it was worth talking about."

"Anyway, if this works, I might be able to persuade him that it would be in there interest to help us – even if it involves working with Delenn."

"It is certainly worth a try." He said thoughtfully.

Alisa rolled over and turned off her light to try and sleep.

***

A few days after the first War council meeting, Ivanova took the opportunity of speaking to Garibabldi after her had reported to her about several ongoing investigantions. They were in his security control room.

"How are you getting on with Nightwatch?" she asked, trying to keep her tone relatiely casual.

"No where much, because it is very hard to get much information with half my security team working against me. At least, I know who they are because they strut around in those armbands. I couldn't believe that Zack was stupid enough to join."

"Do you think he regrets it?" Susan wondered if she should be less direct, but couldn't think of a less direct way that Garibaldi wouldn't see through.

"I don't know. He doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about it, but then he doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about much."

"I wonder if it would be worth you sounding him out about it – after all it would be easier to find out what is going on if you had someone inside."

"Good point, but I don't know how much to trust him and there is so much going on."

"I wonder whether it would be safer to tell him about the Shadows or about the other stuff." Ivanova didn't feel that she could say it openly even though they were alone and he swore unmonitored.

"Possibly a mixture of both – say that as it was Keffer's Starfury that the footage came from, General Hague has asked the Captain (and therefore the rest of us) to look for more information in strictest secrecy."

"As he wants to have all the facts before giving recommendations to the President – and the the Ministry of Peace might be obstructing it if they could, as they are concerned that people will inherently think that war against aliens who attack unprovoked might be a good idea."

"Good. That explains why I need to know what Nightwatch is up to."

"Probably worth hinting to him that there is more going on than you can tell him, hopefully then he'll not be too suspicious."

"And so leave me free to do more digging as well, on various subjects." He hesitated, then continued, "I think that there was a Shadow ship on Mars some time ago – when I was stationed there and went down in the desert – I swear I saw one, but I've been trying to find anyone else who saw it or knows what happened. I've asked the Rangers to see if they can find anything."

"I can see why. If it was there does it mean that Earthgov have known about the Shadows all along?"

"Probably, but then why was Mr Endawi here?"

"To find out what we know – after all we haven't received a copy of his report. It makes me wonder if they are co-operating with them?"

"Possibly, and that would explain the non-aggression treaty with the Centauri."

"Yes, it would," Ivanova said grimly, worried at how easily the pieces seemed to fall into place for something this dire.

***

After arriving on Babylon 5, Alisa hurried to Talia's quarters. She rang the buzzer and waited for a reply – she had arranged with Marcus to try and talk to Talia first while he arranged accommodation for them. She hesitated, waiting for a reply, and after a moment the door opened.

"Come in," Talia said, before looking, "Alisa!"

"Not who you were expecting?" She said as she entered.

"No." Talia waited for the door to close, "I thought you were still on Minbar. Why didn't you tell me you were coming to visit?"

"Well, it isn't precisely a visit. Ambassador Sinclair sent me to you for you to train me to beat Shadow ships."

"How do you know about that?"

"I've been training as a Ranger."

Talia stared at her, Alisa could feel her utter shock at this.

"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, but I really couldn't – it is supposed to be secret so that no one can put the families of Rangers into danger – for the few who have families – most humans who join don't have much in the way of families."

Talia sat down. "I'm just surprised – I thought that you were safely at the temple as Delenn arranged."

"It was so boring there – and Ambassador Sinclair offered me the chance at Ranger training and it sounded like a lot more fun – I know it is serious, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it as well?"

Talia glanced at the clock, "You really have to get going, we'll talk about the training later. Come back tomorrow mid morning. If I can train anyone I expect it would be you. However, I have a meeting soon and it is best if you are not here when the person arrives."

Alisa nodded. "Bye for now, then."

***

The next scheduled meeting of the war council came round. Talia waited nervously as Marcus finished his report on the latest actions of the Centauri. Afterwards, that discussion had finished, she spoke up,

"There is something that I've learned that might help. During the last war the Shadows had a base on Narn and, according to the book of G'Quan, were driven out by the last of the Narn telepaths – at least I think that it what it means."

"That seems to prove that we were right about your effect of the ship. That makes finding more telepaths a much higher priority. Any progress on it?"

"I've been contacting some of those that escaped through the underground railroad when it was running through here, but they aren't prepared to come back into the territory of Psi Corps without more assurances of their safety and something more than 'we think this might be needed'." Doctor Franklin said.

"So we need to prove the concept before we can get the help we need. Any progress, Talia?"

"I've been training Alisa and as far as I can tell she's ready to try it out." Talia tried to sound calm, hiding her worries about the danger.

"However, we are going to have to find another Shadow ship to test it on."

"We are following up on a lead that may result in something for that." Marcus said.

"What is it? Do you know of a base of theirs or something?"

"I'd rather not say yet, nothing has been confirmed so far."

"Apart from that, I think we should take to G'Kar, he may know more or be able to help."

"No," Delenn said abruptly.

Talia wondered why – she had been talking about he need for more allies, "But-"

"It is not up for discussion at this time."

Talia glanced across at Susan, who seemed to gesture for her to leave it.

***

That evening, Talia and Susan met with Alisa to tell her about what had happened at the council meeting. Following their round up, Alisa said,

"So it all comes to rest on me – and the chances of finding a Shadow ship in a way that is it easy to test."

"Garibaldi is following up some leads on that." Susan said, then shook her head, "How strange it is how many decisions big and small of everyone have brought us to this point – how could have predicted it!"

Talia smiled slightly at that, for the first time she was starting to feel that this was possible, when a Shadow ship was found they would be ready, and maybe they could win.

The End!

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't forgotten about the programmed spy, but there is a good reason why they didn't find one.


End file.
